Lewis Carroll Quotes

Who ARE You?" This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.

To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said 'I've a sceptre in hand, I've a crown on my head. Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be, Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me.

It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, 'I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.

I wish I hadn't cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears !

You have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. If you want to get anywhere, you'll have to run much faster.

"In my youth," said his father, "I look to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life."

There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter. Which luckily I am.

She tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

The Cheshire Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt it ought to be treated with respect.

"Well, it's no use your talking about waking him," said Tweedledum, "when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real."

If you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.

"She can't do sums a bit!" the Queens said together, with great emphasis. "Can you do sums?" Alice said, turning suddenly on the White Queen, for she didn't like being found fault with so much. The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. "I can do Addition, if you give me time-but I can do Subtraction, under any circumstances!"

Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction.

You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret... All the best people are!

Magnitudes are algebraically represented by letter, men by men of letters, and so on.

She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).

His answer trickled through my head like water through a sieve.

Well that was the silliest tea party I ever went to! I am never going back there again!

"She can't do Subtraction." said the White Queen. "Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife-what's the answer to that?" "I suppose-" Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. "Bread-and-butter, of course."

It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!

Alice had begun with 'Let's pretend we're kings and queens;' and her sister, who liked being exact, had argued that they couldn't, because there were only two of them, and Alice hand been reduced at last to say, 'Well, you can be one of them then, and I'll be the rest.

Curiouser and curiouser.

So she was considering in her own mind...whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up & picking the daisies.

...those serpents! There's no pleasing them!

'Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?' 'I read it in a book,' said Alice. 'But I had some poetry repeated to me, much easier than that, by - Tweedledee, I think it was.' 'As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his great hands, 'I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes to that - ' 'Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him from beginning.

As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unaquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood--a circumstance at all times unpleasant.

'And how, who am I? I will remember, if I can! I'm determined to do it!' But being determined didn't help much.

Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing. Turn out your toes as you walk. And remember who you are!

Who can tell whether the parallelogram, which in our ignorance we have defined and drawn, and the whole of whose properties we profess to know, may not be all the while panting for exterior angles, sympathetic with the interior, or sullenly repining at the fact that it cannot be inscribed in a circle?

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth.

You won't make yourself a bit realer by crying.

And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five what remains?" "Three hundred and sixty-four, of course." Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful, "I'd rather see that done on paper," he said.

For the snark was a boojum, you see.

I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book.

Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die.

How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.

Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

Twinkle, twinkle little bat How I wonder what you're at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky.

You would have to be half-mad to dream me up.

In proceeding to the dining-room, the gentleman gives one arm to the lady he escorts--it is unusual to offer both.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!

When I come upon anything-in Logic or in any other hard subject-that entirely puzzles me, I find it a capital plan to talk it over, aloud, even when I am all alone. One can explain things so clearly to one's self! And then, you know, one is so patient with one's self: one never gets irritated at one's own stupidity!

Yet what are all such gaieties to me whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?

It’s a miserable story!” said Bruno. “It begins miserably, and it ends miserablier. I think I shall cry. Sylvie, please lend me your handkerchief.” “I haven’t got it with me,” Sylvie whispered. “Then I won’t cry,” said Bruno manfully.

Well, "slithy" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau - there are two meanings packed up into one word.

She [Alice] went on "And how do you know that you're mad?" "To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?" "I suppose so," said Alice. "Well, then," the Cat went on, "you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags it's tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."