Cheshire Quotes & Sayings

[To the editor of the Harlan, Kentucky, Daily Enterprise, as a kindergartener:] I know everything that goes on in this town, and if you give me a job so will you. — Maxine Cheshire

There is evidence that I have survived this before, that I will go on surviving.
There is love. There is love. There is love.
Maybe the Cheshire cat was right. Maybe we are all a little mad. And if we are all in this together, then none of us are truly alone. That means me. But it also means you.
Across these pages, I reach out to you, dear one whose heart feels so alone.
This too shall pass.
And we will all be okay. — Clementine Ford

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: ... So long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough. — Lewis Carroll

I stared at him over the rim of my mug and didn't say anything.
Gideon shoved his shirttails into his slacks with obvious frustration. "Fine."
"Thank you."
"You could refrain from grinning like the Cheshire cat," he muttered. — Sylvia Day

I've never trusted toadstools, but I suppose some must have their good points. — Cheshire Cat

Here's a riddle: When is a croquet mallet like a billy club? I'll tell you: Whenever you want it to be! — Cheshire Cat

Angela Montgomery was in the hall, shadows and her own long black hair wrapping around her. Ash could see only her face, which gave the impression that she was a beautiful human Cheshire cat, come not to smile but to look deeply disdainful of everything. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. '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,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where - ' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
' - so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough. — Lewis Carroll

It might also have helped their cause. Perhaps it is a sign of how eternal Britons once considered their absurd class distinctions that they were comfortable with such mixing. Nonetheless, it was positive - as that devotee of the Cheshire Hounds, Friedrich Engels, appreciated. The author of the "Communist Manifesto" of 1848 considered fox-hunting "the greatest physical pleasure I know", the apogee of English culture and, less convincingly, a source of useful ideas for managing the revolution. What lessons should be drawn from this farrago? The obvious one is that politicians make the laws they deserve. Ill-conceived and illogical, the ban is unworkable. It allows hunts to follow an artificial scent-trail - because an outright ban could criminalise anyone taking his pet dog for a walk in the country. And because it would not be illegal for that pooch to — Anonymous

I work at the deli counter. Have to give people their succulent, chemical-ridden salami and whatnot.'

I pictured Miles in a dark room, standing at a butcher's block with a large knife in one hand, a blood cow's leg steadied under the other, a huge Cheshire grin spreading over his face--

'I bet the customers love you,' I said. — Francesca Zappia

I do love irony. It's so ... complicated and coincidental. — Cassandra Kemper

I don't like the looks of it,' said the King: 'however, it may kis my hand, if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked. — Lewis Carroll

The proper order of things is often a mystery to me. You, too? — Cheshire Cat

Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, "What road do I take?"
The cat asked, "Where do you want to go?"
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it really doesn't matter, does it? — Lewis Carroll

Life in a small town is like an intricately plotted novel, and even though I had read every book in the public library by the time I was fourteen, I found the real people around me saying and doing far more interesting things than did the imaginary book characters. — Maxine Cheshire

Haste makes waste, so I rarely hurry. But if a ferret were about to dart up my dress, I'd run. — Cheshire Cat

She who saves a single soul, saves the universe. — Lewis Carroll

You can't be like pop stars, but you can be part of their story. You can be their fan. — Simon Cheshire

[On social climbing:] Everything that goes up must come down. — Maxine Cheshire

The irony of life, the Cheshire commented. Like Carroll, the Cheshire was capable of being anyone, anytime he wanted, except one person, himself, because he never knew who he really was. — Cameron Jace

Apart from anything else, salt is one thing it should be pretty much impossible for Liverpool to run out of, along with uncles who used to go to school with John Lennon. We're right next door to Cheshire, which is almost entirely salt, apart from a sparse crust of WAGs and Mercedes. And we live on an island, surrounded by seawater. — Gary Bainbridge

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

And how do you know that you're mad? "To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant that?" I suppose so, said Alice. "Well then," the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's angry, and wags it's tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad. — Lewis Carroll

Insanity," said Hatta, still mesmerized by his royal purple hair. "That always seemed the strangest word because it actually means out of sanity. Shouldn't someone who's in sanity be very sane? In means out. Curious."
"And they think we're the mad ones," laughed the smiling Cheshire Cat. — Daniel Coleman

She didn't have to be Cheshire's ideal of a Magician or Hatcher's ideal of a lover or her parents' ideal of a daughter. She could be Alice. — Christina Henry

Dangling punch lines to forgotten stories remain in the language like the smile of the Cheshire cat. — William Safire

Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Parry of 2nd Battalion the Cheshire Regiment at once requisitioned 'extra attractive women' from the cantonment magistrate at Amballa, arguing that he had only six women for 400 men. — Richard Holmes

Robin: When you do marry, who will you marry?
Maria: I have not quite decided yet, but I think I shall marry a boy I knew in London.
Robin(yells): What? Marry some mincing nincompoop of a Londoner with silk stockings and a pomade in his hair and face like a Cheshire cheese? You dare do such a thing! You - Maria - if you marry a London man I'll wring his neck! ( ... ) I'll not only wring his neck, I'll wring everybody's necks, and I'll go right away out of the valley, over the hills to the town where my father came from, and I won't ever come back here again. So there!
( ... )
Maria: Why don't you want me to marry that London boy?
Robin(shouting): Because you are going to marry me. Do you hear, Maria? You are going to marry me. — Elizabeth Goudge

If your stature were an illness, it seems that the Centipede dispenses medicine to make you well. — Cheshire Cat

1 Pardon this highly unusual footnote, but I must break the Narrator's "fourth wall" to explain that this story will be "tricksy" in more than one way. Kitty Cheshire does not like being narrated. She seems to be aware of my watching her, and she resists. At times her thoughts and feelings squirm away from my inspection. I shall do my best, however, to narrate a completely true story about Ever After's most elusive character. — Shannon Hale

His words have the finality of true authority. Reflexively, Emiko starts to bow, acquiescing to his wishes. She stops short. You are not a dog, she reminds herself. You are not a servant. Service has gotten you abandoned amongst demons in a city of divine beings. If you act like a servant, you will die like a dog.
She straightens. "So sorry, I must go north, Raleigh-san. Soon. How much would it cost? I will earn it."
"You're like a goddamn cheshire." Raleigh stands suddenly. "You just keep coming back to pick over the dead. — Paolo Bacigalupi

The order of the world is always right - such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin. — Jean Baudrillard

Besides, if you ever did eat some bad food, I could still find a use for you. I've always wanted a cat-drawn carriage."
Cheshire opened one eye, his pupil slitted and unamused.
"I would dangle balls of yarn and fish bones out in front to keep you moving."
He stopped purring long enough to say, "You are not as cute as you think you are, Lady Pinkerton. — Marissa Meyer

You know ... it always seems obvious to outsiders when someone is doing something wrong, but when your mind is in the midst of evil, it is easy to be manipulated by crueller instincts. — Cassandra Kemper

That was rude, you *are*! Rabbit knows a thing or two and I myself, don't need a weathervane to tell which way the wind blows. — Cheshire Cat

Meta-Essence is the life-force of Wonderland. That of your enemies is especially potent. Collect what you can. Use it wisely. — Cheshire Cat

A rose is still a rose, even hidden under different petals. — Erin R. Bedford

In the place called Adulthood there are no Cheshire Cats ... for they can't endure the suffering of the place. — John Logan

They were easy to distinguish from one another, these two groups. The voters wore frowns and invariably seemed lost. The lobbyists were the ones with the Cheshire Cat grins who navigated the halls more confidently than even the newly elected. — Hugh Howey

Are you here for a reason, Cheshire?

Why, yes, I would enjoy a cup of tea. I take mine with lots of cream, and no tea. Thank you. — Marissa Meyer

Her eyes lit up with wicked glee. "You know what's easier than trying to sneak in?"
I shook my head, her Cheshire grin worrying me.
"Getting caught on purpose. — Lori Brighton

Is our situation not dismal? Wonderland is so discombobulated that lady bugs have turned belligerent and enlisted in the queen's army! PUNISH THEIR CONVERSION! — Cheshire Cat

Those who say there's nothing like a nice cup of tea for calming the nerves never had *real* tea. It's like a syringe of adrenaline straight to the heart! — Cheshire Cat

Gran follows recipes by looking at picture - to the eye, delicious; to the tongue, boiled socks. Makes you wanna cry really. — Simon Cheshire

But hoping," he said, "is how the impossible can be possible after all. — Marissa Meyer

The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die. — Cheshire Cat

That's good. Because you're going to be my assistant." He grins like a Cheshire cat.
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "I am?"
"Yep, I'm going to put my hands all over that body of yours in the front of the room and you're going to kick my ass. — Vi Keeland

For a moment, my eyes shift focus to the glass wall beside her and I see my reflection. There stands Dominic Smith, whose tinted specs make him look dead cool, thank you very much, although the scraggy black hair manages to spoil the effect. My hair stages more uprisings than a nineteenth-century revolutionary. I inherited it from my dad. Thanks, Dad. — Simon Cheshire

If you could meet any character from literature, who would it be?

I would not want characters to come to my world. They'd lose their special qualities, the perfect amount of what I should know about them. On the other hand, I could go to theirs because they would not have any preconceptions of who I was. I'd like to hang out with the Cheshire cat, learn how to disappear, and speak in smart illogic. He would look exactly like his pen-and-ink illustration by Tenniel. I'd be rendered in pen and ink, too. That would be required for entering a pen-and-ink world with its particular dimensional strangeness. — Amy Tan

Kingsley smiled his Cheshire smile. And without a word, he called up the white darkness - the subvertio - a spell that unlocked what could not be unlocked, that destroyed what could not be destroyed.
There was a rumbling, a shaking, like the strongest earthquake, and the iron gate crumbled, and the path began to melt. the demon shrieked, but Kingsley just looked at Mimi the entire time.
Azrael ... — Melissa De La Cruz

The only way to keep a secret in Washington, if you are the one person who knows it, is never to tell another living soul. — Maxine Cheshire

In Harlan, Kentucky, we told stories the way some people play music ... In the mountains, storytelling is truly an art form, and as much recreation as communication. — Maxine Cheshire

Goes to show you can't judge a fish by the hook in it's mouth. — Erin R. Bedford

She was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. — Lewis Carroll

There are some moments you feel like you'll remember forever. Rare, still moments when everything is NOW, as if everything has been stopped and hushed so that you can take it all in. When things are just as they should be, and everyone is one your side, and the whole world makes sense [ ... ] Suddenly, there's peace, perfection, happiness. In that one, tiny moment of time. — Simon Cheshire

Now, what am I to do with this creature when I get it home?" when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it any further. | So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. "If it had grown up," she said to herself, "it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes a rather handsome pig, I think." And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, "if one only knew the right way to change them--" when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off. — Lewis Carroll

They watched the turning colors of the sky until they faded to gray.
'Are the sunsets in Africa as beautiful?' Felicity asked.
He stirred. 'Hm? Oh. They're different. The heat rises from the ground in waves.' He motioned with his hand. 'The lower the sun gets, the more the horizon seems to ripple and move, like it's alive. It's mesmerizing.'
She freed her fingers and started back toward the house. 'I'm sorry all Cheshire sunsets have to offer are pretty colors.'
Rafe watched her retreating backside, tired of the tension between them, and tired of the way he couldn't mention anything farther away than Pelford without upsetting her - even when she lured him into the conversation, as though to test his interest. 'Lis, stop that.'
She turned and looked at him. 'Then stop preferring everywhere else in the world above Forton Hall.'
He narrowed his eyes. 'I will, if you'll stop preferring Forton Hall above all the rest of damned creation. — Suzanne Enoch

Where should I go?" -Alice. "That depends on where you want to end up." - The Cheshire Cat. — Lewis Carroll

Change happens a lot more than you acknowledge ... — Cassandra Kemper

In the past few months, life had lost its sweetness and he'd lost his way. But no longer. Death was once again the enemy, his indifference and apathy drowned in a Cheshire pond. — Sharon Kay Penman

I do not understand how you know you only have one life if you have never died, because if you have never died, then you cannot possibly know if you would go on living a second life, or go on living no more lives. — Cassandra Kemper

Music is very personal. It means different things to different people. To you it means belonging. To me it means knowing I exist. — Simon Cheshire

I'm a full grown man and I'm not tall enough to ride a rollercoaster. So I will sit on the teacups, eat my tea and biscuits and reminisce with the cheshire cat who lives in my head. Oh hello Mr. Cheshire, lovely weather this morning. Mr. Cheshire? Oh my god. — Thom Yorke

Bye Caspian!' I called out. He stopped, and threw me a big grin over his shoulder. I grinned back like the Cheshire cat. What was it about him that made me feel so ridiculously happy? — Jessica Verday

Cheshire's fingers, cold and slightly damp, stroked down the scar on her cheek. She swallowed the shudder of revulsion at his touch.

"Yes," Cheshire said. "He marked you so that he would know you again, and know that you belong to him."

"I belong to no one," Alice said. — Christina Henry

I'm afraid I have to expel a rather ferocious hairball. You're on your own, girl. — Cheshire Cat

To the royal guards of this realm, we are all victims in-waiting. — Cheshire Cat

I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible ... — Elizabeth Wurtzel

To her Cheshire smile, I'll stand on file, she's all I ever wanted. But you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts. — Bruce Springsteen

Off to the side a grin appeared, floating in the darkness like the Cheshire Cat's. Obviously able to see her take notice, the grin stretched wider - impossibly wider. Beside it, another smile cut through the darkness, followed soon by another, then another. Countless unseen figures were grinning at her, surrounding her on every side. That's when the laughter started. — D.L. Wainright

There are too many coy books full of talking animals, whimsical children, and condescending adults. (Some of the most famous animals in the world have talked, but they talked real talk and they weren't called silly names like Doody and Mooloo. They were called names like The Cheshire Cat and they asked sensible questions like "Did you say pig, or fig?") — Katharine Sergeant Angell White

Everyone, this is the new girl. Elder knows her. New girl, this is everyone." A few people look up politely; some actually smile. Most, however, look wary at best, disgusted at worse. The nurse closest to me jabs her finger behind her ear and starts whispering to nobody.
"What's wrong with her?" I ask Harley as he leads me to the table he was sitting at.
"Oh, don't worry, we're all mad here."
I giggle, mostly from nerves. "It's a good thing I read Alice in Wonder-land . I definitely think I've fallen into the rabbit hole."
"Read what?" Harley asks.
"Never mind." All around me, eyes follow my every move.
"Look," I say loudly. "I know I look different. But I'm just a person, like you." I hold my head up high, looking them all in the eyes, trying to hold their stares for as long as possible.
"You tell 'em," says Harley with another Cheshire grin. — Beth Revis

I suppose what I mean is, I never felt like I was part of a gang. No, that's the wrong word. Part of a MOVEMENT! That's it. It feels like there's a swirling, shining wind of change sweeping right at you, sweeping over everyone, and you're inside it. It feels like there is something that transcends you, that goes beyond whatever you are, that is great and whole and good. Great, because when it all comes together it's so much more than all its individual pieces. Whole because you're part of it and if you weren't, then both you and it would be diminished. Good because at its core is pure talent and skill, like you know you'll never have yourself. — Simon Cheshire

Alice in Darkness

Forget tears. Chasing
white animals with timepieces
in this drug-trip landscape
can only lead to more of same.
Hedgehogs, playing cards, paintbrushes:
full of undisclosed danger.
Didn't your mother tell you
not to kiss strangers?
That Cheshire smile shouldn't fool you.
Pull your skirt down.
Your nails are growing so fast
you're hardly human.
Alice, fight your version of Bedlam
as long as you can.
Sleep the sweet dream away
from that gooey looking glass, or mushrooms,
or the fear of your own body.
Forget what the night tastes like.
Stop wondering through the shadows,
holding your neck out
for the slice of the axe. — Jeannine Hall Gailey

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on: 'And how do you know that you're mad?'
'To begin with,' said the Cat, 'a dog's not mad. You grant that?'
'I suppose so,' said Alice.
'Well then,' the Cat went on, 'you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'
'I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice. — Lewis Carroll

Alice: Where Should I go?
Cheshire Cat: That depends, where do you want to end up? — Lewis Carroll

My father told us:
The worst sin is Feeling Sorry for Yourself. — Mariam Cheshire

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. 'Which road do I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want to go?' was his response. 'I don't know,' Alice answered. 'Then,' said the cat, 'it doesn't matter. — Lewis Carroll

Let your *need* guide you behavior. *Supress* your instinct to lead ... Pursue Rabbit! — Cheshire Cat

I am grains of sand in a storm made of Alec, scattering in his fierce wind and spinning back. Out to my limits and then retracted. Billow and fall. But the wind gusts into something even stronger, something more, and with one final, unstoppable spiral out, I dissolve into absolutely nothing but a leftover pulse of a girl that used to exist. And an exhausted Cheshire smile. — Riley Edgewood

I am serenading you sweetheart," Kip says, "The way I figure it, you like those idiots who play guitars, so I figure I will learn how to play so I can seduce you. Jagger will understand. I mean he can't play drums for shit, so you will have no choice but to fall madly in love with my guitar and drum playing skills." He grins like a Cheshire cat. — Sasha Marshall

Is this how you will die? Is this what you were meant for? To simply be bled out like a pig?
A spark of rage flickers, an antidote to despair.
Will you not even try to survive? Did the scientists make you too stupid even to consider fighting for your own life?
Emiko closes her eyes and prays to Mizuko Jizo Bodhisattva, and then the bakeneko cheshire spirit for good measure. She takes a breath, and then with all her strength she slams her hand against the knife. The blade slices past her neck, a searing line.
"Arai wa?!" the man shouts.
Emiko shoves hard against him and ducks under his flailing knife. Behind her, she hears a grunt and thud as she bolts for the street. She doesn't look back. She plunges into the street, not caring that she shows herself as a windup, not caring that in running she will burn up and die. She runs, determined only to escape the demon behind her. She will burn, but she will not die passive like some pig led to slaughter. — Paolo Bacigalupi

The Cheshire Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt it ought to be treated with respect. — Lewis Carroll

I can't know everything, pretend you're an orphan. — Cheshire Cat

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

Cheshire Cat: If I were looking for a white rabbit, I'd ask the Mad Hatter.
Alice: The Mad Hatter? Oh, no no no ...
Cheshire Cat: Or, you could ask the March Hare, in that direction.
Alice: Oh, thank you. I think I'll see him ...
Cheshire Cat: Of course, he's mad, too.
Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here.
[laughs maniacally; starts to disappear]
Cheshire Cat: You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself. — Lewis Carroll

To the pure geometer the radius of curvature is an incidental characteristic - like the grin of the Cheshire cat. To the physicist it is an indispensable characteristic. It would be going too far to say that to the physicist the cat is merely incidental to the grin. Physics is concerned with interrelatedness such as the interrelatedness of cats and grins. In this case the "cat without a grin" and the "grin without a cat" are equally set aside as purely mathematical phantasies. — Arthur Eddington

When you've understood this scripture, throw it away. If you can't understand this scripture, throw it away. I insist on your freedom. — Jack Kerouac

Jane sneezed three hundred dollars' worth of coke into the air.

Krishna's black eyes seem to have mirrors in them. She glances at me with a smile as big as the Cheshire Cat's. — Anthea Carson

I grew up in Yorkshire, and once or twice a year, we'd travel over the Pennines to see my cousins in Cheshire. — Anthony Browne

Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler, but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire Cat. — Julian Huxley

City Ballet has to develop choreographers of stature and a new approach to coaching before everything we value about it fades away and, in the great tradition of the Cheshire Cat, there's nothing left but Peter Martins' smile. — Robert Gottlieb

How can you claim to have a passionate interest in something, and then make no effort to properly understand it? — Simon Cheshire