Lewis Carroll Quotes

Let’s consider your age to begin with — how old are you?’

‘I’m seven and a half exactly.’

‘You needn’t say “exactually,”’ the Queen remarked: ‘I can believe it without that. Now I’ll give you something to believe. I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.’

‘I can’t believe that!’ said Alice.

‘Can’t you?’ the Queen said in a pitying tone. ‘Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.’

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.

How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!

While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit.

Have I gone mad? I'm afraid so.
You're entirely Bonkers.
But I will tell you a secret,
All the best people are.

you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

"What may I do?" at length I cried, Tired of the painful task. The fairy quietly replied, And said "You must not ask."

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Reeling and Writhing of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied, 'and the different branches of arithmetic-ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.

You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret: All the best people are.

The `Why?' cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child's mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child's smile, would read such words in vain: while for any one that has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from GOD's hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen: he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love--for I think a child's first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things: and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love's sake only, with no thought of name, or gain, or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side the grave, is really unselfish: yet if one can put forth all one's powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child's whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child's pure lips, one seems to come somewhere near to this.

"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!"

What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning — and a child's more imporant than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands.

So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.

One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July — Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear — Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream — Lingering in the golden gleam — Life, what is it but a dream?