Top 450 Lewis Carroll Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

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

— Lewis Carroll

254. “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

255. “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

256. “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

257. “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

258. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

260. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

262. “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

263. “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

264. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

266. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

268. “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

269. “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

270. “No good fish goes anywhere without a porpoise.”

— Lewis Carroll

271. “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

272. “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

273. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

275. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

277. “Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”

— Lewis Carroll

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

— Lewis Carroll

279. “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

280. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

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

— Lewis Carroll

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

— Lewis Carroll

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

— Lewis Carroll

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

— Lewis Carroll

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

— Lewis Carroll

287. “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

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

— Lewis Carroll

289. “I don’t believe there’s an atom of meaning in it.”

— Lewis Carroll

290. “With a sort of mental squint.”

— Lewis Carroll

291. “Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through the land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast – And half believe it true.”

— Lewis Carroll

292. “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

293. “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?”

— Lewis Carroll

294. “Why, you might just as well say that, I see what I eat, is the same as, I eat what I see.”

— Lewis Carroll

295. “Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way you’ve come to-day. Consider what o’clock it is. Consider anything, only don’t cry!”

— Lewis Carroll

296. “There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought!”

— Lewis Carroll

Featured in: Book Quotes

297. “I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.”

— Lewis Carroll

298. “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

299. “I almost wish I hadn’t gone down that rabbit-hole – and yet – and yet – it’s rather curious, you know, this sort of life!”

— Lewis Carroll

300. “The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo.”

— Lewis Carroll

Featured in: Firsts Quotes