He paused again as a tear of longing rolled from cheek to lip with the sweet-salty taste of an old memory.

A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.

Is everyone with one face called a Milo?””Oh no,” Milo replied; “some are called Henry or George or Robert or John or lots of other things.””How terribly confusing,” he cried. “Everything here is called exactly...

…it’s just as bad to live in a place where what you do see isn’t there as it is to live in one where what you don’t see is.

I think really good books can be read by anybody.

Would it be possible for me to see something from up there?” asked Milo politely.”You could,” said Alec, “but only if you try very hard to look at things as an adult does.”Milo tried as...

Expect everything so that nothing comes unexpected.

if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn’t there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That’s why imaginary things are often...

But as you know, the most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between.

We never choose which words to use, for as long as they mean what they mean to mean, we don’t care if they make sense or nonsense.

I write best in the morning, and I can only write for about half a day, that’s about it.

Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?” asked Milo.”Much worse,” he said longingly. “But I don’t live here. I’m from a place very far away called Context.

But that can never be,” said Milo, jumping to his feet.”Don’t be too sure,” said the child patiently, “for one of the nicest things about mathematics, or anything else you might care to learn, is...

You see, it’s really quite simple. A simile is just a mode of comparison employing ‘as’ and ‘like’ to reveal the hidden character or essence of whatever we want to describe, and through the use...

Whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when...

Dictionopolis is the place where all the words in the world come from. They’re grown right here in our orchards.””I didn’t know that words grew on trees,” said Milo timidly.”Where did you think they grew?”...

It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers – for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you...

You must never feel badly about making mistakes … as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do...

And, most important of all,” added the Mathemagician, “here is your own magic staff. Use it well and there is nothing it cannot do for you.”He placed in Milo’s breast pocket a small gleaming pencil...

Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.

People always ask about my influences, and they cite a bunch of people I’ve never heard of.

I never knew words could be so confusing,” Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog’s ear.”Only when you use a lot to say a little,” answered Tock.Milo thought this was...

One of the problems you have when you read with kids is that once they like something they want you to read it a hundred times.

And some looked even more like each other than they did like themselves.

The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.

How can you see something that isn’t there?’ yawned the Humbug, who wasn’t fully awake yet. ‘Sometimes it’s much simpler than seeing things that are,’ he said. ‘For instance, if something is there, you can...

Now, remember: they’re not for eating, but for listening, because you’ll often be hungry for sounds as well as food. Here are street noises at night, train whistles from a long way off, dry leaves...

The only other thing which I think is important is: Don’t write a book or start a book with the expectation of communicating a message in a very important way.

AHA!” interrupted Officer Shrift, making another note in his little book. “Just as I thought: boys are the cause of everything.

You may not see it now,” said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo’s puzzled face, “but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if...

A good book written for children can be read by adults.

It has been a long trip,” said Milo, climbing onto the couch where the princesses sat; “but we would have been here much sooner if I hadn’t made so many mistakes. I’m afraid it’s all...

There are good books and there are bad books, period, that’s the distinction.

If you want sense, you’ll have to make it yourself.

…it’s not just learning that’s important. It’s learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.

And when I’m writing, I write a lot anyway. I might write pages and pages of conversation between characters that don’t necessarily end up in the book, or in the story I’m working on, because...

But there’s so much to learn,” he said, with a thoughtful frown.”Yes, that’s true,” admitted Rhyme; “but it’s not just learning things that’s important. It’s learning what to do with what you learn and learning...

When you’re very young and you learn something – a fact, a piece of information, whatever – it doesn’t connect to anything.

What a shame,” signed the Dodecahedron. “They’re so very useful. Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve...

… what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.

But I find the best things I do, I do when I’m trying to avoid doing something else I’m supposed to be doing. You know, you’re working on something. You get bugged, or you lose...

…it’s very much like your trying to reach infinity. You know that it’s there, you just don’t know where-but just because you can never reach it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth looking for.

So each one of you agrees to disagree with whatever the other one agrees with, but if you both disagree with the same thing, aren’t you really in agreement?

How are you going to make it move? It doesn’t have a – ” “Be very quiet,” advised the duke, “for it goes without saying.”And, sure enough, as soon as they were all quite still,...

Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?

I received a grant from The Ford Foundation to write a book for kids about urban perception, or how people experience cities, but I kept putting off writing it. Instead I started to write what...

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question...

It’s completely logical,” explained the Dodecahedron. “The more you want, the less you get, and the less you get, the more you have. Simple arithmetic, that’s all. Suppose you had something and added something to...

So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.

And that’s why people no longer care which words they use as long as they use lots of them.