Top 450 Lewis Carroll Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it – it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.”

— Lewis Carroll

252. “Beautiful soup! Who cares for fish, game or any other dish? Who would not give all else for two pennyworth of beautiful soup?”

— Lewis Carroll

253. “You are old, Father William,” the young man said, “And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head – Do you think, at your age, it is right?” “In my youth,” Father William replied to his son, “I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.”

— Lewis Carroll

254. “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.”

— Lewis Carroll

255. “It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; Alice heard it muttering to itself, “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh, my dear paws! Oh, my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice.”

— Lewis Carroll

256. “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.”

— Lewis Carroll

257. “Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle.”

— Lewis Carroll

258. “No use, no use!′ said the King. ‘She runs so fearfully quick. You might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch! But I’ll make a memorandum about her, if you like-she’s a dear good creature,’ he repeated softly to himself, as he opened his memorandum-book. ‘Do you spell “creature” with a double “e”?”

— Lewis Carroll

259. “The Red Queen shook her head. “You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she said, “but I’ve heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”

— Lewis Carroll

260. “Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!”

— Lewis Carroll

261. “I said you LOOKED like an egg, Sir. And some eggs are very pretty, you know.”

— Lewis Carroll

262. “The question is,’ said Alice, ’whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

— Lewis Carroll

263. “If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said, in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”

— Lewis Carroll

264. “How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway; ‘and even if my head would go through,’ thought poor Alice, ’it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to begin.”

— Lewis Carroll

265. “Tut, tut, child!’ said the Duchess. ‘Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’ And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice’s side as she spoke.”

— Lewis Carroll

266. “I warn you, dear child. If I lose my temper, you lose your head. Understand?”

— Lewis Carroll

267. “I have often seen a cat without a grin – but a grin without a cat – remember the cat kept appearing and disappearing slowly bit by bit.”

— Lewis Carroll

268. “I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is – oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!”

— Lewis Carroll

269. “Mine is a long and a sad tale!′ said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. ‘It is a long tail, certainly,’ said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; ’but why do you call it sad?”

— Lewis Carroll

270. “Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he added, looking angrily at the March Hare. “It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied.”

— Lewis Carroll

271. “No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.” “Wouldn’t it, really?” said Alice, in a tone of great surprise. “Of course not,” said the Mock Turtle. “Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going on a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?”

— Lewis Carroll

272. “I don’t want to be anybody’s prisoner. I want to be a Queen.”

— Lewis Carroll

273. “It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.”

— Lewis Carroll

274. “And thus they give the time, that Nature meant for peaceful sleep and meditative snores, to ceaseless din and mindless merriment and waste of shoes and floors.”

— Lewis Carroll

275. “Oh, ’tis love, ’tis love, that makes the world go round!”

— Lewis Carroll

276. “Why, Mary Ann, what ARE you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!”

— Lewis Carroll

277. “When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark: But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.”

— Lewis Carroll

278. “If it had grown up, it would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.”

— Lewis Carroll

279. “But I was thinking of a way To feed oneself on batter, And so go on from day to day Getting a little fatter.”

— Lewis Carroll

280. “If I wasn’t real,′ Alice said – half-laughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous – ‘I shouldn’t be able to cry.’ ‘I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?’ Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt.”

— Lewis Carroll

281. “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.”

— Lewis Carroll

282. “Oh, don’t go on like that!′ cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands in despair. ‘Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way you’ve come today. Consider what o’clock it is. Consider anything, only don’t cry!”

— Lewis Carroll

283. “Consider anything, only don’t cry!”

— Lewis Carroll

284. “The Good and Great must ever shun That reckless and abandoned one Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.”

— Lewis Carroll

285. “Cheshire Puss,′ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘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.”

— Lewis Carroll

286. “A tale begun in other days, When summer suns were glowing – A simple chime, that served to time The rhythm of your rowing – Whose echoes live in memory yet, Though envious years would say ’forget.”

— Lewis Carroll

287. “Speak roughly to your little boy and beat him when he sneezes! he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases!”

— Lewis Carroll

288. “Who sail on stormy seas; And that’s the way I get my bread – A trifle, if you please.”

— Lewis Carroll

289. “She stretched herself up on tiptoe and peeped over the edge and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.”

— Lewis Carroll

290. “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.”

— Lewis Carroll

291. “And is not that a Mother’s gentle hand that undraws your curtains, and a Mother’s sweet voice that summons you to rise? To rise and forget, in the bright sunlight, the ugly dreams that frightened you so when all was dark.”

— Lewis Carroll

292. “The vast unfathomable sea Is but a Notion-unto me.”

— Lewis Carroll

293. “If I had but the time and you had but the brain.”

— Lewis Carroll

294. “So young a child ought to know which way she’s going, even if she doesn’t know her own name!”

— Lewis Carroll

295. “You won’t make yourself a bit realer by crying.”

— Lewis Carroll

296. “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”

— Lewis Carroll

297. “I can explain all the poems that were ever invented – and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.”

— Lewis Carroll

298. “Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s life in space-time colored his liberated life of the imagination.”

— Lewis Carroll

299. “What a pity it wouldn’t stay!′ sighed the Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her daughter ‘Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose YOUR temper!’ ‘Hold your tongue, Ma!’ said the young Crab, a little snappishly. ‘You’re enough to try the patience of an oyster!”

— Lewis Carroll

300. “Well, then,′ the Cat went on, ’you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.”

— Lewis Carroll