Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

"They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!"

"She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself 'It's the Cheshire Cat: now I shall have somebody to talk to.' 'How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with. Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. 'It's no use speaking to it,' she thought, 'till its ears have come, or at least one of them.'"

"'I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, 'and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak — and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them.'"

"'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice. 'I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where.'"

"The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round."

"Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."

"'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.' 'I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very politely, 'if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.'"

"'Thinking again?' the Duchess asked, with another dig of her sharp little chin. 'I've a right to think,' said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried. 'Just about as much right,' said the Duchess, 'as pigs have to fly.'"

"'Now, I give you fair warning,' shouted the Queen, stamping on the ground as she spoke; 'either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice!'"

"'When we were little,' the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, 'we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle — we used to call him Tortoise —' 'Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked. 'We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock Turtle angrily: 'really you are very dull!' 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,' added the Gryphon."

"'I only took the regular course.' 'What was that?' inquired Alice. 'Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied; 'and then the different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'"

"'And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject. 'Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: 'nine the next, and so on.' 'What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice. 'That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked: 'because they lessen from day to day.'"

"'Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.'"

""Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail. "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?'Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?"

"'I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,' said Alice a little timidly: 'but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.' 'Explain all that,' said the Mock Turtle. 'No, no! The adventures first,' said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: 'explanations take such a dreadful time.'"

"'Give your evidence,' said the King; 'and don't be nervous, or I'll have you executed on the spot.' This did not seem to encourage the witness at all: he kept shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his teacup instead of the bread-and-butter. Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was: she was beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for her."

"'But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked. 'That I can't remember,' said the Hatter. 'You must remember,' remarked the King, 'or I'll have you executed.'"

"Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) 'I'm glad I've seen that done,' thought Alice. 'I've so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, "There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court," and I never understood what it meant till now.'"

"Rule forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court."

"It's the oldest rule in the book."

"The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'"

"He sent them word I had not gone (We know it to be true): If she should push the matter on, What would become of you?"

"My notion was that you had been (Before she had this fit) An obstacle that came between Him, and ourselves, and it.'Don't let him know she liked them best, For this must ever be A secret, kept from all the rest, Between yourself and me."

"Sentence first, verdict afterwards."

"'Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!'"

"You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic."

"But, said Alice, if the world has absolutely no sense, who's stopping us from inventing one?"

"To peruse the wild and wacky theories that successive generations have dreamt up concerning the ‘true’ meaning of Alice’s adventures is to understand how changing social mores can radically alter a text. Of course, it’s a testament to the work’s essential timelessness that each era has been able to read its own fads and preoccupations into the story."

"There are good books which are only for adults, because their comprehension presupposes adult experiences, but there are no good books which are only for children. A child who enjoys the Alice books will continue to enjoy them when he or she is grown up, though his "reading" of what they mean will probably change."

""The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget!" "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it." - Lewis Carroll, from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1872/1982, p. 94, emphasis in original) In his brief dialogue between the King and the Queen - two of the chess piece sovereigns of the Looking Glass House - Lewis Carroll captured the complementary sides of the coin we term memory The King, having experienced a "horrifying" event (being set on a table by Alice, a relative giant whom the King could neither see nor hear), expresses absolute faith in the durability of memory. The Queen, in contrast, presents a less flattering view of the capacity: that without some intervention (a memorandum), even a salient event will be forgotten. In a rare instance, the reality experienced by the King and Queen on their side of the looking glass is reflected on the drawing room side as well. Memory is at times seemingly and at other times frustratingly fallible. What is at times seemingly indelible and at other times frustratingly fallible. What is more, in true looking glass fashion, the same past experience can at one moment impinge on consciousness unbidden and at another elude deliberate attempts to recollect it."

"I can guarantee that the books have no religious teaching whatever in them - in fact they do not teach anything at all."

"No story in English literature has intrigued me more than Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It fascinated me the first time I read it as a schoolboy and as soon as I possibly could after I started making animated cartoons, I acquired the film rights to it. People in his period had no time to waste on triviality, yet Carroll with his nonsense and fantasy furnished a balance between seriousness and enjoyment which everybody needed then and still needs today."

"'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. 'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take more.' 'You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to take MORE than nothing.'"

"You know you say that things are 'much of a muchness' — did you ever see a drawing of a muchness?"

"All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretense Our wanderings to guide."

"The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed 'Off with her head! Off—' 'Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent."

"The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed."

"'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't think —' 'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter."

"Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out — And now our tale is done And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun."

"Alice! a childish story take, And with a gentle hand Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined In Memory's mystic band, Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers Plucked in a far-off land."

"Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures nor conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversation?'"

"There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the ordinary to hear the Rabbit say to itself 'Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!' ...but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out its waistcoat pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet."

"After a fall such as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs!"

"So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, ('which certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words 'DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters."

"If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later."

"'Well, I'll eat it,' said Alice, 'and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!'"

"Curiouser and curiouser!"

"How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!"

"'Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, 'to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying.'"

"'Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable — "' 'Found what?' said the Duck. 'Found it,' the Mouse replied rather crossly: 'of course you know what "it" means.' 'I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,' said the Duck: 'it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?'"