Lewis Carroll Quotes

“Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Where should I go?" -Alice. "That depends on where you want to end up." - The Cheshire Cat.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing--
turn your toes out when you walk---
And remember who you are!”
― Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”

The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”
― Lewis Carroll

“A dream is not reality, but who's to say which is which?”
― Alice Through the Looking Glass

“You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret: All the best people are.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Two girls walk past in gargantuan heels and dresses so tight that their skin is spilling out, and one of them says to the other, "Wait, who the fuck is Lewis Carroll?" and in my imagination I pull a gun out of my pocket, shoot them both and then shoot myself.”
― Alice Oseman, Solitaire

“I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Maybe Lewis G Carroll was on drugs too.”
― Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice

“You just go where your high-top sneakers sneak, and don't forget to use your head.”
― Cheshire Cat

“Tumbling into a dark, Lewis Carroll labyrinth of filth, pursuing a white rabbit of smut!”
― Russell Brand, Scandalous

“We CAN talk,' said the Tiger-lily: 'when there's anybody worth talking to”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

“He lifted his shirt, and on his back was the White Rabbit, wearing his waistcoat and looking at his watch. It was just like the illustration from the book. Only standing next to him, back-to-back, was another White Rabbit wearing a leather motercycle jacket and boots and smoking a cigar.”
― Michael Thomas Ford

“The human mind prefers something which it can recognize to something for which it has no name, and, whereas thousands of persons carry field glasses to bring horses, ships, or steeples close to them, only a few carry even the simplest pocket microscope. Yet a small microscope will reveal wonders a thousand times more thrilling than anything which Alice saw behind the looking-glass.”
― David Fairchild, The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer

“[…]¿Podrías decirme, por favor, qué camino he de tomar para salir de aquí?
—Depende mucho del punto adonde quieras ir —contestó el Gato.
—Me da casi igual adónde —dijo Alicia.
—Entonces no importa qué camino sigas —dijo el Gato.
—…siempre que llegue a alguna parte —añadió Alicia, a modo de explicación.
—¡Ah!, seguro que lo consigues —dijo el Gato—, si andas lo suficiente.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“Well, in OUR country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’

‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, HERE, you see, 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!”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

“It's ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“One novel has been all my reading, Our Mutual Friend, one of the cleverest that Dickens has written.”
― Lewis Carroll, Lewis Carroll's Diaries Volume 2

“As children', wrote Alice Raikes (Mrs. Wilson Fox) in The Times, January 22, 1932, 'we lived in Onslow Square and used to play in the garden behind the houses. Charles Dodgson used to stay with an old uncle there, and walk up and down, his hands behind him, on the strip of lawn. One day, hearing my name, he called me to him saying, "So you are another Alice. I'm very found of Alices. Would you like to come and see something which is rather puzzling?" We followed him into his house which opened, as ours did, upon the garden, into a room full of furniture with a tall mirror standing across one corner.' "Now", he said giving me an orange, "first tell me which hand you have got that in." "The right" I said. "Now", he said, "go and stand before that glass, and tell me which hand the little girl you see there has got it in." After some perplexed contemplation, I said, "The left hand." "Exactly," he said, "and how do you explain that?" I couldn't explain it, but seeing that some solution was expected, I ventured, "If I was on the other side of the glass, wouldn't the orange still be in my right hand?" I can remember his laugh. "Well done, little Alice," he said. "The best answer I've heard yet." "I heard no more then, but in after years was told that he said that had given him his first idea for Through the Looking-Glass, a copy of which, together with each of his other books, he regularly sent me.”
― Lewis Carroll

“—¡Considera qué niña más excepcional eres! ¡Considera lo muy lejos que has llegado hoy! ¡Considera la hora que es! ¡Considera cualquier cosa, pero no llores!”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the looking-glass

“Si así fue, así pudo ser; si así fuera, así podría ser; pero como no es, no es.”
― Lewis Carroll

“But who are they? (opium-eaters) Reader, I am sorry to say, a very numerous class indeed. Of this I became convinced some years ago, by computing, at that time, the number of those in one small class of English society (the class of men distinguished for talents, or of eminent station), who were known to me, directly or indirectly, as opium-eaters; such for instance, as the eloquent and benevolent ___, the late dean of ___; Lord ___; Mr ___, the philosopher; a late under-secretary of state … Now, if one class, comparatively so limited, could furnish so many scores of cases (and that within the knowledge of one single inquirer), it was a natural inference, that the entire population of England would furnish a proportionable number.”
― Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater

“There is 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.”
― Lewis Carroll, The Complete Stories and Poems

“The blizzard of baffling and confusing instructions and information that falls upon every child everywhere assumes a Carrollian texture.”
― Penelope Lively, A House Unlocked

“[The White Knight insists on singing Alice a song which he introduces as follows.]

'The name of the song is called "Haddocks' Eyes".'

'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested.

'No, you don't understand,' the Knichgt said, looking a little vexed. 'That's what the name is called. The name really is "The Aged Aged Man".”
― Lewis Carroll, alice adventures in wonderland by Lewis Carroll

“We know from myths and fairy tales that there are many different kinds of powers in this world. One child is given a light saber, another a wizard’s education. The trick is not to amass all the different kinds of available power, but to use well the kind you’ve been granted. Introverts are offered keys to private gardens full of riches. To possess such a key is to tumble like Alice down her rabbit hole. She didn’t choose to go to Wonderland—but she made of it an adventure that was fresh and fantastic and very much her own. Lewis Carroll was an introvert, too, by the way. Without him, there would be no Alice in Wonderland. And by now, this shouldn’t surprise us.”
― Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“Do you think I've gone round the bend?'

'I'm afraid so.
You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head.
But I'll tell you a secret.
All the best people are.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland