Humpty Dumpty Quotes

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again ~ Lewis Carroll

And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five what remains?"
"Three hundred and sixty-four, of course."
Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful, "I'd rather see that done on paper," he said. ~ Lewis Carroll

Humpty had always sat on walls, it was his way. ~ Jasper Fforde

When I should have been producing obscure volumes of verse entitled the Triumph of Humpty Dumpty or the Nose with the Luminous Dong! Or at best, like Clare, "weaving fearful vision" ... A frustrated poet in every man. Though it is perhaps a good idea under the circumstances to pretend at least to be proceeding with one's great work on "Secret Knowledge," then one can always say when it never comes out that the title explains the deficiency. ~ Malcolm Lowry

Disrespectful words cannot entirely be eaten, ever. Respect is a kind of Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses can't put it all the way up again. ~ Charlotte Armstrong

For my present purpose I require a word which shall embrace both the Sub-Creative Art in itself, and a quality of strangeness and wonder in the Expression, derived from the Image: a quality essential to fairy-story. I propose, therefore, to arrogate to myself the powers of Humpty-Dumpty, and to use Fantasy for this purpose: in a sense, that is, which combines with its older and higher use as an equivalent of Imagination the derived notions of 'unreality' (that is, of unlikeness to the Primary World), of freedom from the dominion of 'observed fact,' in short of the fantastic. I am thus not only aware but glad of the etymological and semantic connexions of fantasy with fantastic: with images of things that are not only 'not actually present,' but which are indeed not to be found in our primary world at all, or are generally believed not to be found there. But while admitting that, I do not assent to the depreciative tone. That the images are of things not in the primary world (if that indeed is possible) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most Potent.

Fantasy, of course, starts out with an advantage: arresting strangeness. But that advantage has been turned against it, and has contributed to its disrepute. Many people dislike being 'arrested.' They dislike any meddling with the Primary World, or such small glimpses of it as are familiar to them. They, therefore, stupidly and even maliciously ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Humpty Dumpty was pushed. ~ Fred Berri

Science fiction" means different things to different people. "When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra" - in which case the term science fiction has piled up a lot of expensive overtime. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

You have a diasporic black world, and the only way to put it back together again is symbolic. It's like Humpty Dumpty. Whoever could edit the 'Encyclopedia Africana' would provide symbolic order to the fragments created over the past 500 years. That is a major contribution. ~ Henry Louis Gates

Man is vulnerable only in his pride, but delicate as Humpty-Dumpty once that is meddled with - though some of them paid the fact a cautious lipservice. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

When Grandma read me:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall ...
I never
knew
that
Humpty's
fall
was
something
that
someday
comes
to
us
all. ~ Lee Bennett Hopkins

I mean, what is an un-birthday present?"
A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course."
Alice considered a little. "I like birthday presents best," she said at last.
You don't know what you're talking about!" cried Humpty Dumpty. "How many days are there in a year?"
Three hundred and sixty-five," said Alice.
And how many birthdays have you?"
One. ~ Lewis Carroll

OLIVER DAVENANT did not merely read books. He snuffed them up, took breaths of them into his lungs, filled his eyes with the sight of the print and his head with the sound of words. Some emanation from the book itself poured into his bones, as if he were absorbing steady sunshine. The pages had personality. He was of the kind who cannot have a horrifying book in the room at night. He would, in fine weather, lay it upon an outside sill and close the window. Often Julia would see a book lying on his doormat.

As well as this, his reading led him in and out of love. At first, it was the picture of Alice going up on tiptoe to shake hands with Humpty Dumpty; then the little Fatima in his Arthur Rackham book, her sweet dusky face, the coins hanging on her brow, the billowing trousers and embroidered coat. Her childish face was alive with excitement as she put the key to the lock. "Don't!" he had once cried to her in loud agony.

In London, he would go every Saturday morning to the Public Library to look at a picture of Lorna Doone. Some Saturdays it was not there, and he would go home again, wondering who had borrowed her, in what kind of house she found herself that week-end. On his last Saturday, he went to say good-bye and the book was not there, so he sat down at a table to await its return. Just before the library was to be shut for lunch-time, he went to the shelf and kissed the two books which would lie on either side of his Lorna when she was returned an ~ Elizabeth Taylor

I'm Jill Dumpty."
"So your brother was Humpty Dumpty?"
"And he didn't fall off that wall, Mr. Horner. He was pushed. ~ Neil Gaiman

Tell it, Fanny. About the crowds, streets, buildings, lights, about the whirligig of loneliness, about the humpty-dumpty clutter of longings. And then explain about the summer parks and the white snow and the moon window in the sky. Throw in a poignantly ironical dissertation on life, on its uncharted aimlessness, and speak like Sherwood Anderson about the desire that stir in the heart. Speak like Remy de Gourmont and Dostoevsky and Stevie Crane, like Schopenhauer and Dreiser and Isaiah; speak like all the great questioners whose tongues have wagged and whose hearts have burned with questions. He will listen bewilderedly and, perhaps, only perhaps, understand for a moment the dumb pathos of your eyes. ~ Ben Hecht

To be sure I was!' Humpty Dumpty said gaily, as she turned it round for
him. 'I thought it looked a little queer. As I was saying, that SEEMS
to be done right--though I haven't time to look it over thoroughly just
now--and that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days
when you might get un-birthday presents--'

Certainly,' said Alice.

And only ONE for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'

I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't--till I tell
you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice objected.

When _I_ use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it
means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.'

The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you CAN make words mean so many
different things.'

The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master--that's
all. ~ Lewis Carroll

Jesus told you all that I hid the spiritual wisdom from the mind and thus it could only be accessed from the heart. And yet men become "learned" in the Bible and study and pull it apart and attempt to put it back together again. Just like the old nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty, "All the King's horses and all the King's men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again." My words cannot be put together again. My word cannot be "put together" by the mind of any man.
This is why I gave the New Covenant. It was and is My promise to guide those who wander, home again unto My heart. ~ Debra Clemente

'Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?' 'I read it in a book,' said Alice. 'But I had some poetry repeated to me, much easier than that, by - Tweedledee, I think it was.' 'As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his great hands, 'I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes to that - ' 'Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him from beginning. ~ Lewis Carroll

All surgeons fear an operation can go too far, to a point where they become irretrievably lost in aatomical bits and pieces. A limit beyond which Humpty Dumpty can never be put back together - at least, not perfectly. The body can never return to its pristine, original state after we've touched it with our hands. ~ Allan Hamilton

No where in 'humpty dumpty' did it say he was an egg. Maybe your inability to think outside of what others have taught you is what's keeping you from putting him together again. ~ Darnell Lamont Walker

The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today. ~ Lewis Carroll

You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you'll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again and your asset values will disappear, your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people's countries, foreign workers. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Philosophers often seem to think that they can just 'assign' any meaning whatever to any word; and so no doubt, in an absolutely trivial sense, they can (like Humpty-Dumpty). ~ J.L. Austin

When I heard, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, I thought, Did he fall or was he pushed? ~ P.D. James

My work life makes much less sense now than 20 years ago. It's Humpty-Dumpty-like in a way; I can't put the pieces back together. ~ Kiki Smith

And finally, I've always drawn a great deal of moral comfort from Humpty Dumpty. The part I like the best? 'All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.' That's because there is no Humpty Dumpty, and there is no God. None, not one, no God, never was. ~ George Carlin

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. ~ Lewis Carroll

'I beg your pardon?' Alice said with a puzzled air.
'I'm not offended,' said Humpty Dumpty. ~ Lewis Carroll

When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra. ~ Lewis Carroll

Like Humpty Dumpty. At some point you have to pick up the pieces. Or walk away. Don't look back. Fuck the king's horses. ~ Lauren Beukes

She wasn't on heroin then, but she was a mess. I thought I was going to put Humpty Dumpty back together and turn her into a princess. Instead, she turned into scrambled eggs, and always was ~ Danielle Steel

I've never worked out what the moral of Humpty Dumpty is. I can only think of: Don't sit on a wall, if you're an egg. ~ Ricky Gervais

I can explain all the poems that were ever invented - and a good many that haven't been invented just yet. ~ Lewis Carroll

New nursery rhymes for new times. HIckory dickery dock my daddy's nuts from shelshock. Humpty dumpty thought he was wise till gas came along and hurned out his eyes. A dillar a dollar a ten o-clock schollar blow off his legs and then watch him holler ... ~ Dalton Trumbo

We are like Humpty Dumpty and all these king's horses and all these king's men cannot put us back together again ~ Gale Forman

When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less. ~ Therese Anne Fowler

It's actually as simple as this. New authors, building their customer base, need physical bookshops. Physical bookshops are lovely tactile, friendly, expert, welcoming places. Physical books, which can only be seen and handled in physical bookshops, are lovely, tactile things. Destroy those bookshops, and the very commercial and cultural base to the book industry is destroyed. Once and for all. Like Humpty Dumpty, it can never be put together again. ~ Tim Waterstone

Trumpty Dumpty had a great fit:
Twittering bitterly made his brain split.
All the King's minions and all the King's kin,
Grabbed the Epoxy and glued him again. ~ Margaret Panofsky

I've had some really, really wild fun nights in Vegas. I ended up on stage once with this band, The Digital Underground, doing the Humpty Dance. ~ Ashton Kutcher

Humpty was Pushed! ~ Chris Christodoulou

Oh, don't mind Humpty. He's inhaled a hell of a lot of super-glue. ~ Bill Willingham

You never really heard anything about Humpty when he was whole; only that he was broken, irreparable. ~ T.L. Hines

And my seven-year-old world humpty-dumptied, never to be put back together again. ~ Maya Angelou