Top 450 Lewis Carroll Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “I couldn’t afford to learn it,” said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. “I only took the regular course.” “What was that?” inquired Alice. “Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied; “and then the different branches of Arithmetic – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

— Lewis Carroll

402. “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

403. “So here’s a question for you. How old did you say you were?′ Alice made a short calculation, and said ‘Seven years and six months.’ ‘Wrong!’ Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. ‘You never said a word like it!’ ‘I though you meant “How old ARE you?“’ Alice explained. ‘If I’d meant that, I’d have said it,’ said Humpty Dumpty. Alice didn’t want.”

— Lewis Carroll

404. “Come, my head’s free at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.”

— Lewis Carroll

405. “That was a narrow escape!” said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence.”

— Lewis Carroll

406. “Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, ‘If you please, sir – ’ The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept.”

— Lewis Carroll

407. “And how do you know that you’re mad? “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” I suppose so, said Alice. “Well then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags it’s 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

408. “Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him.”

— Lewis Carroll

409. “Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife – what’s the answer to that?” “I suppose – ” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. “Bread-and-butter, of course. Try another Subtraction sum. Take a bone from a dog: what remains?”

— Lewis Carroll

410. “Dear Cook, please lend a frying-pan To me as quickly as you can.” “And wherefore should I lend it you?” “The reason, Cook, is plain to view. I wish to make an Irish stew.” “What meat is in that stew to go?” “My sister’ll be the contents!” “Oh!” “You’ll lend the pan to me, Cook?” “No!” Moral: Never stew your sister.”

— Lewis Carroll

411. “I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they’ll.”

— Lewis Carroll

412. “We CAN talk,′ said the Tiger-lily: ’when there’s anybody worth talking to.”

— Lewis Carroll

413. “White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he.”

— Lewis Carroll

414. “It’s the stupidest tea party I ever was at in all my life!”

— Lewis Carroll

415. “How fond she is of finding morals in things!’ Alice thought to herself.”

— Lewis Carroll

416. “There will be nonsense in it!”

— Lewis Carroll

417. “Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. “You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some severity; “it’s very rude.”

— Lewis Carroll

418. “So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,” she said to herself, “unless – unless we’re all part of the same dream. Only I do hope it’s my dream, and not the Red King’s! I don’t like belonging to another person’s dream,” she went on in a rather complaining tone: “I’ve a great mind to go and wake him, and see what happens!”

— Lewis Carroll

419. “Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?’” “Don’t you mean ‘purpose’?” said Alice. “I mean what I say,” the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added “Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.” “I could tell you my adventures – beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

— Lewis Carroll

420. “At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called out, ‘Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I’ll soon make you dry enough!’ They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.”

— Lewis Carroll

421. “First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she.”

— Lewis Carroll

422. “Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it – once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, filled the air, mixed up with the.”

— Lewis Carroll

423. “You may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.”

— Lewis Carroll

424. “Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think – – ” “Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.”

— Lewis Carroll

425. “And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “He wo’n’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”

— Lewis Carroll

426. “I am real!” said Alice, and began to cry.”

— Lewis Carroll

427. “You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,′ said the Red Queen. ‘Alice – Mutton; Mutton – Alice.’ The leg of mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.”

— Lewis Carroll

428. “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you ca’n’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.”

— Lewis Carroll

429. “Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. 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.”

— Lewis Carroll

430. “The secret, Alice, is to surround yourself with people who make your heart smile. It’s then, only then, that you’ll find Wonderland.”

— Lewis Carroll

431. “I ca’n’t remember things before they happen.’ ‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ the Queen remarked.”

— Lewis Carroll

432. “He was overwhelmed by the beauty of the world. Beside that nothing seemed to matter.”

— Lewis Carroll

433. “Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!”

— Lewis Carroll

434. “Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare “You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”

— Lewis Carroll

435. “The “i” in “slithy” is long, as in “writhe”; and “toves” is pronounced so as to rhyme with “groves.” Again, the first “o” in “borogoves” is pronounced like the “o” in “borrow.” I have heard people try to give it the sound of the “o” in “worry.” Such is Human Perversity.”

— Lewis Carroll

436. “And the Gryphon added “Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.” “I could tell you my adventures – beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly; “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

— Lewis Carroll

437. “Fan her head!′ the Red Queen anxiously interrupted. ‘She’ll be feverish after so much thinking’.”

— Lewis Carroll

438. “For the Congregation this new movement involves the danger of learning to think that the Services are done for them; and that their bodily presence is all they need contribute. And, for Clergy and Congregation alike, it involves the danger of regarding these elaborate Services as ends in themselves, and of forgetting that they are simply means, and the very hollowest of mockeries, unless they bear fruit in our lives.”

— Lewis Carroll

439. “At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him.”

— Lewis Carroll

440. “For nonsense, as Chesterton liked to tell us, is a way of looking at existence that is akin to religious humility and wonder.”

— Lewis Carroll

441. “If it had grown up, ‘she said to herself, ‘it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.’ And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, ’if one only know the right way to change them -.”

— Lewis Carroll

442. “I’ll stay down here! 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!’ cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, ‘I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here!”

— Lewis Carroll

443. “My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears, I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one, and I really felt very badly. Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble?”

— Lewis Carroll

444. “In that direction... lives a Hatter, and in that direction... lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

— Lewis Carroll

445. “So she brushed away her tears, and went on, as cheerfully as she could.”

— Lewis Carroll

446. “Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. ‘I don’t quite understand you,’ she said, as politely as she could.”

— Lewis Carroll

447. “It isn’t respectable to beg.”

— Lewis Carroll

448. “I kept his letters in a sandalwood box and covered them every day with the flowers I gathered in the garden.”

— Lewis Carroll

449. “Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.”

— Lewis Carroll

450. “ARE you to get in at all?′ said the Footman. ‘That’s the first question, you know.”

— Lewis Carroll