Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll

But do cats eat bats, I wonder?’

so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

‘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!’

But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

‘It was much pleasanter at home,’ thought poor Alice, ‘when one wasn’t always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. 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!

‘If it had grown up,’ she said to herself, ‘it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.’

‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives a Hatter: and in that direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’

‘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 my life!’

‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’

‘Very true,’ said the Duchess: ‘flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is—“Birds of a feather flock together.”’ ‘Only mustard isn’t a bird,’ Alice remarked. ‘Right, as usual,’ said the Duchess: ‘what a clear way you have of putting things!’ ‘It’s a mineral, I think,’ said Alice. ‘Of course it is,’ said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; ‘there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is—“The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.”’

‘That’s the reason they’re called lessons,’ the Gryphon remarked: ‘because they lessen from day to day.’