These 89 of the best Alice in Wonderland quotes celebrate Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which remains a beloved work of literature that continues to capture the attention of multiple generations, from Disney’s 1951 animated film to the live-action version in 2010. From curious advice from the Cheshire Cat to musings from the Mad Hatter, and much more, get ready to chase a white rabbit down a rabbit hole with these 89 of the best Alice in Wonderland quotes.

Alice in Wonderland Quotes

 

Alice Quotes

1. “But that’s just the trouble with me. I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”

2. “I wonder which way I ought to go.”

3. “Oh, dear. I do wish I hadn’t cried so much.”

4. “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!”

5. “It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.”

6. “Curiouser and curiouser!”

7. “Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if only I knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

8. “Well, I’ve had enough nonsense. I’m going home!”

9. It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not.”

10. “If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.”

11. “‘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!'”

12. “I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great question is ‘What?’”

14. “Three inches is such a wretched height.”

15. “How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The antipathies, I think—”

16. “I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.”

17. “I’m afraid I can’t explain myself, sir. Because I’m not myself, you know.”

18. “But how can one possibly pay attention to a book with no pictures in it?”

19. “Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

20. “For if one drinks much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it’s almost certain to disagree with one sooner or later.”

21. “Well, I can’t put it any more clearly, sir, for it isn’t clear to me.”

22. “But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”

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White Rabbit Quotes

23. “I’m late, I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say ‘hello, goodbye,’ I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”

24. “Oh, my fur and whiskers! I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”

25. “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!”

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Mad Hatter Quotes

26. “You must have a cup of tea!”

27. “I shall elucidate.”

28. “Twinkle twinkle little bat. How I wonder what you’re at. Up and above the world you fly, like a tea tray in the sky.”

29. “You can always take more than nothing.”

30. “‘I want a clean cup,’ interrupted the Hatter: ‘let’s all move one place on.'”

31. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

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March Hare Quotes

32. “If you don’t think, you shouldn’t talk!”

33. “I have an excellent idea! Let’s change the subject.”

34. “A very merry unbirthday to you!”

35. “It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited.”

36. “She doesn’t know what an unbirthday is!”

37. “Careful, she’s stark raving mad.”

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Cheshire Cat Quotes

38. “Most everyone’s mad here.”

39. “You may have noticed that I’m not all there myself.”

40. “Lose something?”

41. “Haste makes waste, so I rarely hurry. But if a ferret were about to dart up my dress, I’d run.”

42. “That depends where you want to get to.”

43. “We are all victims in-waiting.”

44. “The proper order of things is often a mystery to me.”

45. “The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die.”

46. “I can’t know everything.”

47. “Every adventure requires a first step.”

48. “Only a few find the way, some don’t recognize it when they do – some… don’t ever want to.”

49. “Let your need guide your behavior.”

50. “I went to a hunting party once, I didn’t like it. Terrible people. They all started hunting me!”

51. “I’m stranger. You’re stranger. Together, we are… strangers.”

52. “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.”

53. “You may have noticed, I’m not all there myself.”

54. “Never let anyone drive you crazy; it is nearby anyway and the walk is good for you.”

55. “Well, some go this way, and some go that way. But as for me, myself, personally, I prefer the short-cut.”

56. “Can you stand on your head?”

57. “Actually, I am right on time.”

58. “And no scheme of ours can raise any sort of smile.”

59. “It’s always tea time.”

60. “Somehow you strayed and lost your way, and now there’ll be no time to play, no time for joy, no time for friends – not even time to make amends.”

61. “If you’re gonna make it to the top, get a grip on this rock, and get a grip on yourself.”

62. “I never get involved in politics.”

63. “No one does [play fair] if they think they can get away with it.”

64. “Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.”

65. “I am not crazy; my reality is just different from yours.”

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Queen of Hearts Quotes

66. “No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.”

67. “Curtsey while you’re thinking. It saves time.”

68. “That’s enough! Off with their heads!”

69. “Who’s been painting my roses red?”

70. “Someone’s head will roll for this!”

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King of Hearts Quotes

71. “I don’t like the look of it at all,” said the King: “however, it may kiss my hand, if it likes.”

72. “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.”

73. “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

74. “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.”

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The Duchess Quotes

75. “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.’”

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

78. “Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

79. “Ah well! It means much the same thing,” said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added, “and the moral of that is—‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’”

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Caterpillar Quotes

80. “Who. Are. You?”

81. “The mushroom, of course!”

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Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum Quotes

82. “That’s logic!”

The Lory Quotes

83. “I’m older than you, and must know better.”

The Eaglet Quotes

84. “Speak English!” said the Eaglet. “I don’t know the meaning of half those long words, and, what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!”

Walrus Quotes

85. “The time has come, to talk of other things–of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings. Calloo, Callay, no work today, we’re the cabbages and kings.”

The Doorknob Quotes

86. “Nothing’s impossible!”

87. “Come, come now. Crying won’t help.”

88. “Sorry, you’re much too big. Simply impassable.”

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Dodo Quotes

89. “The best way to explain it is to do it.”

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