Alice in Wonderland quotes

“Curiouser and curiouser!”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 2)

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 6)

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 6)

‘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.’

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 10)

“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar.
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.”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 5)

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

(Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 5)

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles. — I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud.
“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare.
“Exactly so,” said Alice.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least–at least I mean what I say–that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”
“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 7)

“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 9)

“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that is–‘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.'”
“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.”
“That’s nothing to what I could say if I chose,” the Duchess replied, in a pleased tone.
“Pray don’t trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,” said Alice.

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 9)

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.”

(Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 12)

“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!”

(Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 2)

“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 question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

(Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 6)

“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”

(Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 7)

Misquotations

Do you suppose she’s a wildflower?

(from Disney’s 1951 ‘Alice in Wonderland’ cartoon movie)

What I tell you three times is true.

(This is a quote from Lewis Carroll, but it is not from any of the ‘Alice’ tales; it is from his poem “The Hunting of the Snark”.)

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

(from George Harrison’s song “Any Road”. It is often mistaken with an actual quote from the book, beginning “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?,” which is quote number 3 on this page.)

Mad Hatter: “Have I gone mad?”
Alice Kingsley: “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

(from Tim Burton’s 2010 ‘Alice in Wonderland’ movie)

Mad Hatter (to Alice): You used to be much more… “muchier.” You’ve lost your muchness.

(from Tim Burton’s 2010 ‘Alice in Wonderland’ movie)

“I’m not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.”

(Source unknown – but certainly not from Lewis Carroll’s books)

“How long is forever?”
“Sometimes, just one second.”

(Source unknown – but certainly not from Lewis Carroll’s books)

Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.

(from Jules de Gaultier)

Read more (about) misquotations on my blog!

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