Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is a novel about a curious young girl who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantastical world. This bizarre and enchanting land is populated by peculiar and memorable characters, including the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and the Mock Turtle. The story follows Alice as she interacts with outrageous creatures—from a surreal tea party with the Mad Hatter and March Hare to a topsy-turvy game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts—each adding to the absurdity of this strange realm. Since the books' There have been many adaptations and retellings since the book was published in 1865, including Disney's Alice in Wonderland animated film, but the original novel remains unsurpassed. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is beloved for its playful use of language and its commentary on childhood. It is also renowned for its narrative innovation and whimsy, as well as themes like identity and perception. 

Though Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was written as a children's book, Carroll's story invites readers of all ages to question the world around them. We've gathered 40+ wonderful and curious quotes from this classic for you to enjoy and contemplate.

On identity, perception, and change

• "Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle."

• "I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different."

• "I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’”

• "How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another."

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

• "It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."

• "Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual."

• "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.'"

• "'I wish creatures wouldn't be so easily offended!"

• "'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. 'You must be,' said the Cat,' or you wouldn't have come here.'”

• "We're all mad here."

On simple logic and sound advice

• "Contrariwise ... if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

• "'Why ... the best way to explain it is to do it."

• "Begin at the beginning ... and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

• "And what is the use of a book ... without pictures or conversation?"

• "Birds of a feather flock together."

• “‘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.’"

• "That's the reason they're called lessons ... because they lessen from day to day."

• "If everybody minded their own business ... the world would go round a deal faster than it does."

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

• "If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later."

• "If you knew Time as well as I do ... you wouldn't talk about wasting it."

• “If you didn’t sign it ... that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.”

• "You say things are ‘much of a muchness’—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?”

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

• "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."

• “‘I don't think—’ ‘Then you shouldn't talk.’”

• “‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the March Hare went on. ‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that's the same thing, you know.’ ‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter. ‘Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!’”

• "She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it)."

• "It would be so nice if something made sense for a change."

• “Off with their heads!”

On fantasy, wonder, and nonsense

• "A dream is not reality but who's to say which is which?"

• “Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin ... but a grin without a cat!”

• “Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”

• "Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way."

• "Sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

• "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!"

• "In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again."

• "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!”

• "Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible."

• "Curiouser and curiouser!"