Lewis Carroll Quotes

355 Sourced Quotes

Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully. Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh; "my name means the shape I am - and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.

Lewis Carroll
The further off from England the nearer is to France — Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Lewis Carroll
A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire
Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!
And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?
And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?

Lewis Carroll
'What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones and Meridian lines?'
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
'They are merely conventional signs!'

Lewis Carroll
Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!" Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.

Lewis Carroll
He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
'There won't be much for us!'

Lewis Carroll
"He is a charming boy!" my Lady exclaimed. "Even his snores are more musical than those of other boys!"

Lewis Carroll
There are certain things - as, a spider, a ghost,
The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three -
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
Is a thing they call the Sea.

Lewis Carroll
But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!

Lewis Carroll
I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story — I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it — but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea' — is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again.

Lewis Carroll
'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

Lewis Carroll
I wasn't asleep! said Bruno, in a deeply-injured tone. "When I shuts mine eyes, it's to show that I'm awake!"

Lewis Carroll
No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.

Lewis Carroll
Those locks of jet are turned to gray,
And she is strange and far away
That might have been mine own today — That might have been mine own, my dear,
Through many and many a happy year —
That might have sat beside me here.

Lewis Carroll
Not as in rest she bowed,
But large hot tears were coursing down her cheek.
And her low-panted sobs broke awefully
Upon the sleeping echoes of the night.

Lewis Carroll
In her eyes is the living Hght
Of a wanderer to earth
From a far celestial height:
Summers five are all the span —
Summers five since Time began
To veil in mists of human night
A shining angel-birth. Does an angel look from her eyes?
Will she suddenly spring away,
And soar to her home in the skies?
Beatrice! Blessing and blessed to be!

Lewis Carroll
And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?

Lewis Carroll
'There's glory for you!' 'I don't know what you mean by glory,' Alice said. 'I meant, there's a nice knock-down argument for you! ' 'But glory doesn't mean a nice knock-down argument,' Alice objected. 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'

Lewis Carroll
And so it fell upon a day,
(That is, it never rose again)

Lewis Carroll
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.

Lewis Carroll
'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.'

Lewis Carroll
Ye golden hours of Life's young spring,
Of innocence, of love and truth!
Bright, beyond all imagining,
Thou fairy-dream of youth! I'd give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life's decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer-day.

Lewis Carroll
Put the date in full. It is another aggravating thing, when you wish, years afterwards, to arrange a series of letters, to find them dated "Feb. 17", "Aug. 2", without any year to guide you as to which comes first. And never, never, dear Madam (N. B. this remark is addressed to ladies only: no man would ever do such a thing), put "Wednesday", simply, as the date!

Lewis Carroll
There's nothing a well-regulated child hates so much as regularity. I believe a really healthy boy would thoroughly enjoy Greek Grammar — if only he might stand on his head to learn it!

Lewis Carroll
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 too 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.

Lewis Carroll
You see it's like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.

Lewis Carroll
Yet still to choose a brat like you,
To haunt a man of forty-two,
Was no great compliment!

Lewis Carroll
'Tis a secret: none knows how it comes, how it goes:
But the name of the secret is Love!

Lewis Carroll
'My father and mother were honest, though poor – '
'Skip all that!' cried the Bellman in haste.

Lewis Carroll
But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, Come, tell me how you live!
And thumped him on the head.

Lewis Carroll