Letters of Lewis Carroll

"It is as much as I can do to find time to draw the corks of the bottles of beer I consume - and as for drawing children, it's out of the question!"

"Oh woman, in our hours of ease A most unmitigated tease! When pain and anguish wring the brow, Doesn't she make a jolly row?"

"That anyone should look up to me, or think of asking my advice - well, it makes one feel humble, I think, rather than proud - humble to remember, while others think so well of me, what I really am, in myself."

"My dear Winnie, But you will be getting tired of this long letter: so I will bring it to an end."

"A bantam-hen that wastes an egg, Is sure to get extremely poor And to be forced at last to beg For hard-boiled eggs from door to door."

"I really didn't dare to send it across the Atlantic - the whales are so inconsiderate. They'd have been sure to want to borrow it to show to the little whales, quite forgetting that the salt water would be sure to ruin it."

"Do you know, I didn't even know of your existence? And it was such a surprise to hear that you had sent me your love! I felt just as if Nobody had suddenly run into the room, and given me a kiss! (That's the thing which happens to me, most days, just now.)"

"Don't forget the kiss to yourself, please; on the forehead is the best place."

"I have very little time, now, fir society. (In fact, years ago, I began to decline all invitations.) The remaining years may be very few; and there is much work I still want to do."

"Praise isn't good for any of us; love is, and it would be a good thing if all the world were full of it; I like my books to be loved, and I like to think some children love me for the books, but I don't like them praised."

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

"As to the meaning of the Snark? I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense!"

"In answer to your question, "What did you mean the Snark was?" will you tell your friend that I meant that the Snark was a Boojum. I trust that she and you will now feel quite satisfied and happy."

"I do not say this without some experience of the way in which an outlay that seemed trifling at the time has afterwards involved us in expenses to which we should probably have demurred had we foreseen them."

"I hold so strongly the principle that it is the duty of a minority loyally to accept the decision of the majority, and to make no attempt to reverse it, that I should be very sorry to be believed to have acted otherwise."

"Science ceased not to cry, "More gold, more gold!" And her three fair daughters, Chemistry, Biology and Physics (for the modern horse-leech is more prolific than in the days of Solomon), ceased not to plead, "Give, give!" And we gave; we poured forth our wealth like water (I beg her pardon, like H2O)."

"It used once to be thought indispensable for an educated man that he should be able to write his own language correctly, if not elegantly; it seems doubtful how much longer this will be taken as a criterion."

"Mathematics, though good-humouredly scorned by the biologists on account of the abnormal certainty of its conclusions, is still reckoned among the sciences."

"The truth is that Christ Church stands convicted of two unpardonable crimes - being great, and having a name. Such a place must always expect to find itself "a wide mark for scorn and jeers" - a target where the little and nameless may display their skill."

"I should like to see whether you can give me any further help as to my difficulties with "p" in such combinations as "impossible," "them patience," "the power," "spake," which combinations have lately beaten me when trying to read in the presence of others, in spite of my feeling quite cool, and trying my best to do it "on rule." These failures have rather deferred the hope I had formed of being very soon able to help in Church again, for if I break down in reading to only one or two, I should be all the worse, I fear, for the presence of a congregation."

"I could not well explain to you in my telegram, and had not the opportunity of doing so when we met, my reason for not undertaking, as you wished, to read the service. If I could have trusted myself to command my feelings and my voice, I should much have wished to read the service over the remains of my dear old uncle, whom I can never think of without the deepest affection and gratitude for his life-long kindness: but I did not feel I could safely do so. Otherwise, you may be sure I would have attempted it."

"You are quite correct in saying it is a long time since you have heard from me: in fact, I find that I have not written to you since the 13th of last November. But what of that? You have access to the daily papers. Surely you can find out negatively, that I am all right! Go carefully through the list of bankruptcies; then run your eye down the police cases; and, if you fail to find my name anywhere, you can say to your mother in a tone of calm satisfaction, "Mr. Dodgson is going on well.""

"Do not, oh do not indulge such a wild idea as that a newspaper might err! If so, what have we to trust in this age of sham?"

"No man should be hurried in his work, and an artist least of all."

"I specially wish my face to remain unknown to the public. I like my books to be known, of course: but personally I hope to remain in obscurity."

"Never hurry yourself in the least over my work, I beg. But for the uncertainty of life, I would not ask for any continuity at all. Still, as neither of us is secure that his life will endure for a thousand long years, it will no doubt be advisable, when this picture is done and approved, to go on with the others whenever you have time and inclination."

"Also another thing should be remembered: the narrator (the whole book will be autobiographical) must not appear in any of the illustrations."

"I think animals, treated as animals only, are very hard to depict comically. If animals could draw, and had a sense of humour, no doubt they could do it."

"I wish I dared dispense with all costume; naked children are so perfectly pure and lovely, but Mrs. Grundy would be furious; it would never do."

"I take no real meals but breakfast and dinner; for luncheon a couple of biscuits, or a bit of bread and cheese, will suffice."

"I don't like either face of Lady Muriel. I don't think I could talk to her, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't fall in love with her."

"Most artists draw children's feet too small; they have some conventional idea of beauty which is not nature."

"I have been distributing copies [of Alice's Adventures] to all the hospitals and convalescent homes I can hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading them."

"If only you would study a few different faces from real life, so as to avoid the family-likeness, which seems so entirely inevitable, when an artist draws out of his own head,"

"I was resolved to have the thing done in first-rate style, or not at all."

"Mr. Tenniel is the only artist, who has drawn for me, who resolutely refused to use a model, and declared he has no more needed one than I should need a multiplication-table to work on a mathematical problem!"

"To be like some actual child is to lose grace, because no living child is perfect in form: many causes have lowered the race from what God made it. But the perfect human form, free from these faults, is surely equally applicable to men, and fairies, and angels?"

"All "dry-plate" photography is inferior, in artistic effect, to the now-abandoned "wet-plate": but, as a means of making memoranda of attitudes, etc., it is invaluable."

"Would you kindly do no sketches, or photos, for me on a Sunday? It is, in my view (of course I don't condemn any one who differs from me) inconsistent with keeping the day holy."