How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Would it be of any use, now," thought Alice, "to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think it very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying." So she began: "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!" (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen, in her brother's Latin Grammar, "A mouse – of a mouse – to a mouse – a mouse – O mouse!") (Wonderland 2.15)
Alice's humorous misapplication of her brother's Latin textbook is the first indication that the ways of communicating she's learned in school aren't going to be much help to her in Wonderland – although they are good for a laugh.
Quote #2
"In that case," said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, "I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies – "
"Speak English!" said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!" (Wonderland 3.14-15)
The Eaglet objects to making language too complicated; there's no need, after all, to put obstacles in the way of understanding one another. The Dodo, Lewis Carroll's own self-parody (a play on the way he would stutter his real name "Do-Do-Dodgson"), likes using flowery language and fancy words, but this really isn't necessary for his audience of child readers.
Quote #3
"You are not attending!" said the Mouse to Alice, severely. "What are you thinking of?"
"I beg your pardon," said Alice very humbly: "you had got to the fifth bend, I think?"
"I had not!" cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
"A knot!" said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her "Oh, do let me help to undo it!" (Wonderland 3.34-37)
Before the "Who's on First?" sketch, there were the Alice books. In each line, a new misinterpretation (usually totally illogical) interferes with the communication between characters. Alice's confusion of the homophones "tale" / "tail" and "knot" / "not" is behind this comedic exchange. (Take a look at Chapter 3 to see the Mouse's "tale" pictured as a concrete poem "tail.")
Quote #4
"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'!"
"You might just as well say," added the March Hare, "that 'I like what I get' is the same thing as 'I get what I like'!"
"You might just as well say," added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, "that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe'!" (Wonderland 7.15-19)
There is, of course, a grammatical lesson here: word order is crucial to meaning in the English language. (In other languages, sometimes it's less important or not important at all, such as the Latin that Alice's brother studies.) But beyond that, there's a reminder that little differences can cause huge misunderstandings. Communicating exactly what you mean to another person is far more difficult than it first appears.
Quote #5
Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to her to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. "I don't quite understand you," she said, as politely as she could. (Wonderland 7.31)
Language is meant to be a communication tool, so when it fails – or actually hinders understanding – Alice is very confused.
Quote #6
"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don't know exactly what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate – " (Looking-Glass 1.40)
What Alice seems to be describing is the way that language can give you an emotional sense of something even when you don't understand all the specific details. In this case, after reading "Jabberwocky," she feels the gist of the poem – a man killed a monster – even though she couldn't define any of the actual words. This suggests that language has several levels; we could call them, for example, denotation (the dictionary definition of a word, its exact meaning) and connotation (the feeling and implications of a word). Alice also uses the influence of context to infer the meaning of the words in the poem.
Quote #7
The Red Queen shook her head. "You may call it 'nonsense' if you like," she said, "but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!" (Looking-Glass 2.58)
Maybe the real joke here is that dictionaries aren't particularly sensible anyway. After all, there's no scientific law that says a sound should mean a specific thing – all the rules of language are arbitrary.
Quote #8
"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." (Looking-Glass 6.63-65)
Humpty Dumpy believes that he can exercise total control over language. Unfortunately, as Alice realizes, if he makes words mean anything he wants, then nobody can understand him. People have to agree on shared definitions and meanings for communication to be possible.
Quote #9
"I meant by 'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life."
"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra." (Looking-Glass 6.68-70)
Humpty Dumpty's arbitrary redefinition of a word means that he has to explain himself anyway – making the word totally irrelevant to the conversation.
Quote #10
It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that, whatever you say to them, they always purr. "If they would only purr for 'yes,' and mew for 'no,' or any rule of that sort," she had said, "so that one could keep up a conversation! But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing?" (Looking-Glass 12.2)
Alice wants a back-and-forth communicative exchange with her kittens. Apart from the fact that this is silly, it points out the fact that communication consists of a give and take between two parties – not just a one-sided monologue.