Wonderland Quotes

The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in ones own home. Most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes. ~ Azar Nafisi

The study of meditation is the entrance into the world of Wonderland. It has nothing to do with how you'd like it. You want a nice neat little study that's easily understandable. ~ Frederick Lenz

I have read various articles on the fourth dimension, the relativity theory of Einstein, and other psychological speculation on the constitution of the universe; and after reading them I feel as Senator Brandegee felt after a celebrated dinner in Washington. "I feel," he said, "as if I had been wandering with Alice in Wonderland and had tea with the Mad Hatter." ~ Charles Lane Poor

All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, including Israel and Hamas. But Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic and totalitarian regimes. It does not deform the truth; it inverts it. It routinely paints a picture for the outside world that is diametrically opposed to reality. And all of us reporters who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel's Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories - required under the rules of American journalism - although we know they are untrue. ~ Chris Hedges

Yes!" He says. "Fear is an excellent motivator. I find that it really brings out the true ingenuity of a creature. ~ M.D. Elster

There are many technical workers who enjoy wandering so much that, like Alice in Wonderland, they don't much care where they go, so long as they get somewhere. ~ Gerald M. Weinberg

I did a show called 'Wonderland' a few years back, and I was fortunate enough to spend a full-on two weeks - I'm talking 13-15 hours a day - with the doctors and patients at Bellevue in New York. That served me well for 'Durham County.' ~ Michelle Forbes

I believe that the biggest mistake that most people make when it comes to their retirement is they do not plan for it. They take the same route as Alice in the story from "Alice in Wonderland," in which the cat tells Alice that surely she will get somewhere as long as she walks long enough. It may not be exactly where you wanted to get to, but you certainly get somewhere. ~ Marc Singer

Here is your schedule," she said, sliding a piece of paper to me.

I picked it up and read it aloud. "Wildcrafting 100, Alchemy of Baking 100, Teamancy 100, Magical Weapons Training 200, Creatures of Wonderland, and History of Wonderland. What, no Quidditch?"

"What's Quidditch? ~ Melanie Karsak

Two days wrong!" sighed the Hatter. "I told you butter wouldn't suit the works!" he added, looking angrily at the March Hare. "It was the best butter," the March Hare meekly replied. ~ Lewis Carroll

A likely story indeed!" said the Pigeon, in a tone of the deepest contempt. "I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one with such a neck as that! No, no! You're a serpent; and there's no use denying it. I suppose you'll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg!"
"I have tasted eggs, certainly," said Alice, who was a very truthful child; "but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know."
"I don't believe it," said the Pigeon; "but if they do, then they're a kind of serpent: that's all I can say. ~ Lewis Carroll

It was too exactly as imagined to be true. But I felt as gladly and expectantly disorientated, as happily and alertly alone, as Alice in Wonderland. ~ John Fowles

I feel we are becoming divergent upon the paths we are walking down. I feel we are becoming distant, as the way we see things becomes more pronounced. I feel I know you less, where once I knew you like I knew myself before. I fear that in the end, we will become no more. When that guillotine descends, friend will be friend no longer. As time ascends, we will move forward on different paths in life's Wonderland. ~ Jennifer Megan Varnadore

My favourite book is my dictionary. It excites me. Each time I open it, the endless possibilities come tumbling out. It's Alice falling into Wonderland. It's an artist's paint box. It's a new day. ~ Stephen Moore

I was thinking that when I have children, that I should always dress as a character for them, so they think their mom is Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella. It would be totally messed up! ~ Gwen Stefani

As a child, I copied Tenniel's illustrations from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' obsessively, particularly his drawing of the white rabbit in waistcoat and frockcoat, umbrella tucked under one arm and a fob watch in paw, a look of suppressed panic in his eye. ~ Chris Riddell

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle. ~ Lewis Carroll

Wonderland was wonderful, but without a counterbalance, it could turn it's inhabitants completely insane. ~ Marie Hall

One naughty little woodpecker
Another day pecking your holes
Ruining the the forest, tree wrecker
The angry wood god turned your little beak into a poison knife
Poor little wood pecker, your nesting holes are all tainted
Your foods with toxins rife
Touch your friends, and they all will die falling to your feet
Oh, sad little woodpecker
Poisonous tears, shining brightly as they stream down your cheeks ~ Shiro

You didn't think you could escape us that easily, did you?" a deep menacing voice taunted in my ear. "I told you that you were the one I was looking for. ~ Brynn Myers

I am here because I have to be here, as here I am supposed to be! All things should be, and usually are, found in their rightful places. Can you imagine how chaotic the world would be if nothing was in its correct place? ~ William O'Brien

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ~ Lewis Carroll

The first thing that matters: I am a child of the eighties. I grew up in a neon wonderland of talking horses, compassionate bears, hair that didn't move in a stiff wind, and the constant threat of nuclear war. ~ Seanan McGuire

You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~ Tara Crescent

What is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'
- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Ch. 1 ~ Lewis Carroll

It's didn't take a genis tactician to see that failure was imminent, Alyss more powerful that Arch had supposed. He would have to focus on his contingency plan and let the Glass Eyes attack on Wonderland fizzle out
a circunstance mildly disapointing, but not worrisome. Such a strategist was the king that he had a contingency plan for his contingency plan, and even, if circunstances required, a contingency plan for his contingency plan's contingency plan.
~ Frank Beddor

It was as good as sealing yourself into a dungeon. Walled in, with nowhere to go but your own doom. ~ Haruki Murakami

Lewis Carroll. He was an odd one. Real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Completely denied having anything to do with the Alice books. Daft as a brush. You'd have liked him! ~ Mike Tucker

When nuclear weapons were an elite club of five relatively sane world powers, the Left was convinced the planet was about to go ka-boom any minute, and the handful of us who survived would be walking in a nuclear winter wonderland. Now anyone with a few thousand bucks and an unlisted number in Islamabad in his Rolodex can get a nuke, and the Left couldn't care less. ~ Mark Steyn

... lots of speculation out there about the existence of a secret Utopia, a wonderland, hidden in plain sight they say... ~ Trevor Alan Foris

Something about the floating club reminded him of Wonderland. Not Disney's Wonderland, either, but Wonderland according to Lewis Carroll: dark, sumptuous. Treacherous. It was the sort of place where anything could happen ... and probably did. He had a feeling if a deranged, bloodthirsty monarch suddenly swept in and started demanding people's heads, no one would bat an eye. ~ Laura Oliva

Hey maybe you have Alice in Wonderland Syndrome! ~ Jandy Nelson

The little girl just could not sleep
Because her thoughts were way too deep
Her mind had gone out for a stroll
And fallen down a rabbit hole. ~ Anonymous

Smoke fills the room, gray and sylphlike, lovely in its deadly grace. It trails into the fire and forms what appear to be wings - black and magnificent. A man's silhouette fills out the image, two arms reaching for me.
Morpheus, or a mirage?
My mind trips back to our dance across the starlit sky in Wonderland, how amazing it felt to be so free. What would it feel like to dance with him in the middle of a blazing inferno, surrounded by an endless power that breathes and grows at our will? ~ A.G. Howard

Loretta folded her arms. She felt like a heroine in a movie, confronted by a jealous husband in a kitchen while outside the camera is aching to draw back and show a wonderland of adventures waiting for her - long, frantic rides on trains, landscapes of wounded soldiers, a lovely white desert across which a camel caravan draped voluptuously in veils moves slowly with a kind of mincing melancholy, the steamy jungles of India opening before British officers in white, young officers, the mysteries of English drawing-rooms cracking before the quick, humorless smirk of a wise young woman from America ... ~ Joyce Carol Oates

I've never told you the story of Alice in Wonderland, have I? ~ Edgar Bergen

Welcome to Wonderland! Here you will meet some of literature's most ~ Lewis Carroll

The world of WONDERLAND is authentic, vibrant, and genuine. Stacey D'Erasmo explores the delight and terror of second chances. A great read! ~ Michael Stipe

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days. ~ Lewis Carroll

I feel like Alice falling into Wonderland.
A line came to him: It would be so nice if something made sense for a change. ~ Eoin Colfer

For me, science is already fantastical enough. Unlocking the secrets of nature with fundamental physics or cosmology or astrobiology leads you into a wonderland compared with which beliefs in things like alien abductions pale into insignificance. ~ Paul Davies

She has carefully audited her life and found she has no requirement for a husband. ~ Helen Smith

In Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality
the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds
the rattling teacups would ~ Lewis Carroll

By the time Africa is developed, it will be the wonderland of the world, 'cause it will be able to make use of all the mistakes of other nations. But it nah go just drop out of the sky. So we have to put in work. ~ Damian Marley

She'd been to Narnia, Wonderland, Hogwarts, Dictionopolis. She had tessered, fallen through the rabbit hole, crossed the ice bridge into the unknown world beyond. ~ Anne Ursu

In an instant, five harlequin-like clowns emerged and began to perform all kinds of acrobatic tricks, encircling us––correction...corralling us. They were graceful but a little creepy too. They were wearing black and white costumes that were form fitting and appeared to move like some psychedelic drug trip when they flipped around. That of course was odd, but not nearly as odd as the chant they were singing as they continued to perform their tricks.
See us dance.
Watch us flip.
Care to take a chance?
We'll only need a sip.
Come to see our mistress?
Or come to see our master?
She can be quite viscous.
But he is a disaster.
We love them both, and we'll let you choose.
Either way, we wouldn't want to be in your shoes. ~ Brynn Myers

Destinies, are like roads.
Relationships are much like destinies. Therefore, relationships are like roads.
Some roads are circular. They start at one spot and end in the same. Some roads fork and force. Their travelers to choose which way to go. Some roads go great distances. And then there are those that
end abruptly.
Who is to say that a short road is less meaningful than a long? ~ Heather Lyons

When I look at my books I feel like Alice in the closing pages of Wonderland, when the cards all rise up and overwhelm her. ~ Linda Grant

We`re not in Wonderland anymore, Alice. ~ Charles Manson

You've always brought out the softer side in my master. But he hasn't changed. He's as changeless as he is ageless. He'll always be selfish, manipulative, untamable. He knows no other way to be, for he is all things Wonderland. ~ A.G. Howard

For now. But if I ever decide you're useless, you are a dead man."
To be killed by you is to be desired more than a life excluded from your service."
Bravo." Her Imperial Viciousness laughed with genuine feeling. "Bra-vo! ~ Frank Beddor

Alice's predicament in Wonderland is a familiar one to modern women: She's a post-Enlightenment girl in a persistently feudal world. She perceives herself as a subject with inalienable rights, but she's perceived, variously, as an interloper, a servant, a threat, an object, a bother, a girl. Alice believes this can be remedied with information. She believes that if she explains and assets herself, if she reasonably points out the facts, then she will shift the perception. At the very least, she thinks, she can learn the rules and fit in. So, she tries. She takes others' good faith for granted. She makes her case again and again. She tries to learn their rules. But she is eternally frustrated, because Wonderland is governed not by reason or rules but by ideology, faith, superstition, and fear. Something is real if you believe it's real, if you continually affirm its existence. It disappears if you don't, subsumed into a parallel universe. ~ Carina Chocano

Like I am Alice in the Wonderland and have gotten too big for the room. ~ Lauren Oliver

The true Wonderland was not like that, he knew. It was as much shadow as sunlight, and its mysteries could only be unveiled when your wits were about used up and your mind close to cracking. ~ Clive Barker

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

The rabbit hole has collapsed, and my key is melded to a nugget of worthless metal. ~ A.G. Howard

Redd's lact of knowledge astounded the tutor. Did she really understand so little about how a Wonderland princess became queen?
She doesn't know what she doesn't know," he mumbled, and then: "Your Imperial Viciousness, perhpas we should speak face-to-face, without this velvet barrier between us. Are you decent?"
I'm never decent! ~ Frank Beddor

I thought you did,' said the Mouse. `--I proceed. "Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable--"'

`Found WHAT?' said the Duck.

`Found IT,' the Mouse replied rather crossly: `of course you know what "it" means.'

`I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,' said the Duck: `it 's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?'

The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, `"--found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William's conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence of his Normans--" How are you getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke. ~ Lewis Carroll

If you go chasing your freedom your fate will only follow you there and force you back. ~ Christina Henry

I made a discovery. It was cold enough to make my eyes water, and I found out that If I kept them almost closed, the moisture diffused the lights, so that everything - the Moon, the stars, the street lamp - seemed to have halos and points of scattered light around it. The snow-banks seemed to glitter like a sea of spun sugar, and all the stars were woven together by a lace of incandescence, so that I was walking through a Universe so wild, so wonderful that my heart nearly broke with its beauty.

"For years, I carried that time and place in mind. It's still there. But the thing is, the Universe didn't make it. I did. I saw it, but I saw it because I made myself see it. I took the stars, which are distant suns, and the night, which is the Earth's shadow, and the snow, which is water undergoing a state-change, and I took the tears in my eyes, and I made a wonderland. No one else has ever been able to see it. No one else has ever been able to go there. Not even I can ever return to it physically, it lies thirty-eight years in the past, in the eye-level perspective of a child, its stereoscopic accuracy based on the separation between the eyes of a child. In only one place does it actually exist. In my mind Elizabeth - in my life.

"But I will die, and where will it be, then?"

Elizabeth looked up at him. "In mind mind a little? Along with the rest of you?"

Hawks looked at her. He reached out and, bending forward as tenderly as a child rece ~ Algis Budrys

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! ~ Lewis Carroll

Grandfather always said school's a place where they take sixteen years to wear down your brain. Grandfather hardly went to school either. ~ Haruki Murakami

"I would've followed you anywhere," he mumbles, his voice raw with agony. "All I ever wanted was to spend forever with my best friend. With the girl who gave life to my paintings. But I'm not the one who inspired your mosaics, am I? It was always Wonderland. That's why you chose him."
"Chose him? It was a kiss, that's all - "
"It's not the kiss. Sometimes words are louder than actions."
"Words ... ? What words?"
"The promise you gave him that you couldn't give me." ~ A.G. Howard

Life just happens, Alice. What makes us special is how we react to it. ~ Robert McKay

The Queen is dead and gone. Well, at least she's gone ... for now. Long live Alice! Long live Wonderland. ~ Cheshire Cat

But I wasn't simply going nuts, tumbling down a shaft into Wonderland. It was my misfortune -or salvation- to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality .

Now, I would say to myself , you are feeling alienated from people and unlike other people, therefore you are projecting your discomfort onto them. ~ Kaysen

A curse on this game. How can you stick at a game when the rules keep on changing? I shall call myself Alice and play croquet with the flamingos. In Wonderland everyone cheats and love is Wonderland, isn't it? ~ Jeanette Winterson

But which way do I go from here?" she wondered, searching the unfamiliar city.

"That depends a great deal on where you want to go, ~ J.M. Sullivan

But, I nearly forgot, you must close your eyes otherwise you won't see anything ~ Lewis Carroll

Just how many soldiers do you think I can fight on my own?" Alice asked.
"As many as necessary," Hatcher said. "I believe in you, Alice."
She felt for the first time that she wanted to kiss him, that she wanted to know what it was like when she chose it. So she did. ~ Christina Henry

I looked at Nan, who was grinning wildly at me.

She waved. "Don't tell them your name. And don't lose your head."

And then the spot on the floor opened and sucked me down.

I tumbled into the darkness. ~ Melanie Karsak

I do not know if Alice in Wonderland was an original story-I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it-but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea'-is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again. ~ Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland, Alice down the rabbit hole, Alice out in Cyberspace, flung along the lines of data, flying across fields of light, the night cities that live only behind her eyes. ~ Melissa Scott

Alice: I didn't know that cheshire cats grinned. In fact, I didn't know that cats could grin.
Duchess: They can, and most of 'em do. ~ Rod Espinosa

...although I wonder whether it wouldn't be more accurate to say, 'Once given, I can never be taken back.'"
"That would imply we give our hearts away willingly, and I am not sure that is the case. ~ Marissa Meyer

She felt like Alice in Wonderland. Like the soda must have had a little drink me tag and now the room was shrinking, or she was growing, or either way there wasn't enough space. ~ V.E. Schwab

When we were little," the Mock Turtle went on at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, "we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle - we used to call him Tortoise -"
"Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?" Alice asked.
"We called him Tortoise because he taught us," said the Mock Turtle angrily: "really you are very dull! ~ Lewis Carroll

Alice of Wonderland was stranded on Earth. ~ Frank Beddor

I do not believe the fable that men read travel books to escape from reality: they read to escape into it, from a crazy wonderland of armaments, cant, political speeches at once insincere and illiterate, propaganda, and social injustice which the lunacy of humanity has constructed over a period of years. ~ Alex Comfort

I don't suppose there'll be a tree left standing, for ever so far around, by the time we're finished.' Tweedledum to tweedledee [They are fighting over a rattle]. Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, p. 156 ~ Lewis Carroll

Having been away from you offical duties," Arch said as the Miller's hand lowered to his side, "you might not have hearc, but I've developed a weapon capable of destroying all of Boaderland, Wonderland, Morgavia, Unterlan and who knows what else. I call it WILMA, which stands for Weapon of Inconceivable Loss and Massive Annihilation. It also happens to be the name of one of my former wives, who had to be put down on account of her feisty temper. ~ Frank Beddor

Darkness grew where it would and took what it wanted. It staked its claim and never let go. And no one else could pry you free of it. ~ Carrie Ryan

Be careful, you are not in Wonderland. I've heard the strange madness long growing in your soul. But you are fortunate in your ignorance, in your isolation. You who have suffered, find where love hides. Give, share, lose - lest we die, unbloomed. ~ Allen Ginsberg

Ever since I saw you, I can't think of anyone or anything else," he whispered then leaned in and set a soft kiss on my lips. ~ Melanie Karsak

One thing more: Wonderland and I are the same. You love one of us, you love the other. You are Wonderland, too. Which means we are the perfect fit, in more ways than you can even imagine. On our day together, I'll take great pleasure in showing you all of them. ~ A.G. Howard

However, this court is constrained by law, and under the law, I can only conclude that the Government has not violated FOIA by refusing to turn over the documents sought in the FOIA requests, and so cannot be compelled by this court of law to explain in detail the reasons why its actions do not violate the Constitution and the laws of the United States. The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is not lost on me; but after careful and extensive consideration, I find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules - a veritable Catch-22. I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret. ~ Colleen McMahon

It's one of my favorite parts in Alice in Wonderland. Alice asks the White Rabbit, 'How long is forever?' The White Rabbit answers, 'Sometimes just one second.' This" - he kissed my lips - "this feels like forever right here." He stared into my eyes. "How can I not wish for that? ~ Isabelle Ronin

He reminded me of the caterpillar from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, sitting upon his giant mushroom, lazing about without a care in the world. If only he were small enough to squish beneath my boots.

"That's a disgusting habit."

"So is dissecting the dead prior to breakfast. But I don't scorn you for that unseemly habit. In fact" - he leaned closer, dropping his voice into a conspiratorial whisper - "it's rather endearing seeing you up to your elbows in viscera each morning. Also, you're quite welcome for the flower. Do place it on your nightstand and think of me while dressing for bed. ~ Kerri Maniscalco

The minds of others are stranger depths to employ our hearts to than our own wonderland of cerebral cortex. ~ Jennifer Megan Varnadore

I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then ~ Lewis Carroll

Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland. ~ Gyorgy Ligeti

Imagination is a roller coaster ride in search of ideas and beauty into the wonderland of subconscious and conscious mind. ~ Debasish Mridha

Alice had to be small to enter Wonderland. ~ David Brooks

When he was seventy-four years old the Cretan novelist Nikos Kazantzakis began a book. He called it Report to Greco... Kazantzakis thought of himself as a soldier reporting to his commanding officer on a mortal mission - his life. ...

Well, there is only one Report to Greco, but no true book... was ever anything else than a report. ... A true book is a report upon the mystery of existence... it speaks of the world, of our life in the world. Everything we have in the books on which our libraries are founded - Euclid's figures, Leonardo's notes, Newton's explanations, Cervantes' myth, Sappho's broken songs, the vast surge of Homer - everything is a report of one kind or another and the sum of all of them together is our little knowledge of our world and of ourselves. Call a book Das Kapital or The Voyage of the Beagle or Theory of Relativity or Alice in Wonderland or Moby-Dick, it is still what Kazantzakis called his book - it is still a "report" upon the "mystery of things."

But if this is what a book is... then a library is an extraordinary thing. ...

The existence of a library is, in itself, an assertion. ... It asserts that... all these different and dissimilar reports, these bits and pieces of experience, manuscripts in bottles, messages from long before, from deep within, from miles beyond, belonged together and might, if understood together, spell out the meaning which the mystery implies. ...

The library, almost alone of the g ~ Archibald MacLeish

You are insistent, calling again. You want me to tell you the story of Scheherazade, who rocks the sad king on her knees as she sings him tales from wonderland. Yet you know that I am not Scheherazade, and that one of the world's greatest wonders is that I am unable to enter my country or pass through the region around it. ~ Liana Badr

It takes all the running you can do just to keep in the same place. ~ Lewis Carroll

I never realized before that taking care of someone makes you love them more than when they take care of you. ~ Helen Smith

Brave, impossible Alice. Stop being so sensible. ~ Emory R. Frie

It's not to be expected that an ox and an ass should worship at the crib. Animals are always doing the oddest things in the lives of the saints. It's all part of the poetry, the Alice-In-Wonderland side of religion. ~ Evelyn Waugh

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. ~ Andy Wachowski