Lewis Carroll’s children’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, turns 150 this year.
For a century and a half it has delighted and puzzled us in equal measure. We have fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice, taken tea with her and the Mad Hatter, been maddened by the Cheshire Cat and had to convince the Queen of Hearts that we didn’t steal her tarts!
Alice in Wonderland was first published in 1865 and was inspired by a boat trip that author Lewis Carroll took with some family friends, the Liddell children, down the River Thames in Oxford. He told the youngest daughter, Alice, a story as they rowed along and she begged him to write it down. When he got home that evening he began straight away.
The book, and its sequel Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, have been translated into at least 65 languages, including Cornish and Latin, and countless film and theatre adaptations have been made.
Alice in Wonderland is a book that remains as enchanting as ever, no matter how many times we reread it. Here, to celebrate its birthday, we share our top 10 favourite quotes!
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here.”
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
“First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; ‘for it might end, you know,’ said Alice to herself; ‘in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?’ 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.
“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”
“And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?”
“Off with their heads!”
“You used to be much more...muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.”
“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!”
We want to add your favourite Alice in Wonderland quotes to this blog. So you can either email them to childrens.books@theguardian.com or share on Twitter, @GdnChildrensBks – use #alicequotes and you’ll see other quotes and thoughts as well!
Noel, via email
“If only they would ‘purr for ‘yes’, and mew for ‘no’, or any rule of that sort,” Alice had said, “so that one could keep up a conversation!”
(This is the basis of the binary number system from which the Internet, and everything in it, was created.)
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”
So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice began to think that very few things indeed were really impossible
Sue, via email
One of my favorite quotes from Alice in Wonderland that certainly rings true in my life is, “I give myself good advice, but I seldom follow it.”
Caroline, on email
“It would have made a dreadfully ugly child; but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.”
“Open your mouth a little wider when you speak.”
Jamin, on email
(The Cheshire Cat’s head is floating above the King, Queen, & executioner)
“The executioner’s argument was, that you couldn’t cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and that he wasn’t going to begin at his time of life. The King’s argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren’t to talk nonsense. The Queen’s argument was, that if something wasn’t done about it in less than no time, she’d have everyone executed, all around.”
Kamlesh, on email
From the Dutchess:
“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.”
Princess, on email
“If I had a world of my own everything would be nonsense nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t.”
Georgina, on email
‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’
Angela, on email
‘What a curious helmet you’ve got!’ said Alice cheerfully. ‘Is that your invention too?’
It is said to the White Knight in Through the Looking Glass.
