Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the complete name of the popular 1865 novel commonly known as “Alice in Wonderland.” Written by Charles Dodgson using the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, the novel tells the story of young Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole into a world full of mystery and the unexpected.
The novel is both a beloved children’s book and a satire of Victorian society. It explores themes such as coming of age, the search for meaning, and the reality of death. Older readers of the Victorian age also saw a satire of certain aspects of society and the judicial system in the novel.
Here are 60 fascinating Alice in Wonderland quotes.
Alice in Wonderland Quotes
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.”
“‘Have I gone mad?’ ‘I am afraid so, you are entirely bonkers. but I will tell you a secret… all the best people are.‘”
“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!”
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.”
“It is better to be feared than loved.”
“It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.”
“I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
“Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”
“How fine you look when dressed in rage. Your enemies are fortunate your condition is not permanent. You’re lucky, too. Red eyes suit so few.”
“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.”
“In summer, when the days are long, Perhaps you’ll understand the song: In Autumn, when the leaves are brown, Take pen and ink, and write it down.”
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!”
“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”
“Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”
“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice.“Not at all,” said Alice: “she’s so extremely—” Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on “—likely to win, that it’s hardly worth while finishing the game.”
“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”
“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.’”
Alice: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”The Cheshire Cat: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”Alice: “I don’t much care where.”The Cheshire Cat: “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
“Either it brings tears to their eyes, or else -“”Or else what?” said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.”Or else it doesn’t, you know.”
“I don’t think…” said Alice. “Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.
“Not all who wander are lost.”
“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
“When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can’t understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom.”
“If you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
“The proper order of things is often a mystery to me.”
“I never get involved in politics.”
“It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn’t gone down the rabbit-hole–and yet–and yet–…”
“Birds of a feather flock together.”
“You may have noticed, I’m not all there myself.”
“When the day becomes the night and the sky becomes the sea, when the clock strikes heavy and there’s no time for tea; and in our darkest hour, before my final rhyme, she will come back home to Wonderland and turn back the hands of time.”
“And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle looks like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.”
“Never let anyone drive you crazy; it is nearby anyway and the walk is good for you.”
“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).
“If there’s no meaning in it,” said the King, “that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any.”
“Alice thought to herself, ‘I don’t see how he can EVEN finish, if he doesn’t begin.’ But she waited patiently.”
`Have you guessed the riddle yet?′ the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. `No, I give it up,′ Alice replied: `what’s the answer?′ `I haven’t the slightest idea,′ said the Hatter.
“The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe that it is possible.”
“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.”
“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”
“When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!”
“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
“Alice didn’t like being criticised, so she began asking questions. “Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you?” “There’s the tree in the middle,” said the Rose: “what else is it good for?” “But what could it do, if any danger came?” Alice asked. “It could bark,” said the Rose. “It says ‘Bough-wough!’ ” cried a Daisy, “that’s why its branches are called boughs!”
“You don’t know much,’ said the Dutchess; ‘and that’s a fact.”
“Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, “Let us both go to law: I will prosecute you.—Come, I’ll take no denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I’ve nothing to do.” Said the mouse to the cur, “Such a trial, dear Sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.” “I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,” Said cunning old Fury: “I’ll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.”
“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.”
“Curiouser and curiouser!”
“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.””Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.”
“You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.””Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark.”Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
“The time has come The walrus saidTo talk of many things:Of shoes- and ships-And sealing wax-Of cabbages and kings-And why the sae is boiling hot-
And whether pigs have wings.”
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“If it had grown up, it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.”
“Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everythingthat Alice said; ‘there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moralof that is– “The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.”
“What is the use of a book without pictures or conversations?”
“It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying, ‘Come up again, dear!’ I shall only look up and say, ‘Who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up — if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else’ — but, oh, dear!”
“I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.”
“Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.”
“Well!’ thought Alice to herself, ‘after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!’ (Which was very likely true.)”
“All the time they were playing the Queen never left off quarrelling with the other players, and shouting ‘Off with his head!’ or ‘Off with her head!’ Those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of execution.”
Related: The Best Mad Hatter Quotes
Video: Origins of Alice in Wonderland
Sit back, relax, and enjoy Lewis Carroll’s most famous work. There is a nice recap of a LOT of interesting things I never knew!
Hope these Alice in Wonderland Quotes add some Whimsy to your Week
These Alice in Wonderland quotes are funny and surprising. They remind many of their childhood and their own exploration of the rabbit hole, right along with Alice. They also remind us of the confusion of our early youth and our inability to find ourselves among the many changes in our lives.
They bring out the child in us, and the more serious adult who can examine our world’s customs and conventions more clearly. Enjoy these wonderful reminders and remember that life is, in the end, rather silly.
Related: Cheshire Cat Quotes
Image Credit:John Tenniel/Public domain
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