The Hatter's Sayings

The best lines ever spoken at six o'clock — quoted verbatim from Carroll, with every chapter cited.

“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

Reference: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter VII, “A Mad Tea-Party.” The Hatter’s second speech to Alice — and the most famous riddle in literature.

“Your hair wants cutting”

“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

Reference: Chapter VII. His first speech — a personal remark, the rudest possible opening.

“I see what I eat” is not “I eat what I see”

“You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”

Reference: Chapter VII. Impeccable logic deployed as pure rudeness.

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?”

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

Reference: Chapter VII. Asked, of course, before any answer exists.

“I haven’t the slightest idea”

“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.

“Nor I,” said the March Hare.

Reference: Chapter VII. The riddle’s official non-answer.

“What day of the month is it?”

“What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

Reference: Chapter VII. The watch tells the day of the month, never the hour.

“Two days wrong!”

Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.”

“Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter.

Reference: Chapter VII. The watch is slow because butter got into the works.

“It was the best butter”

“It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied.

Reference: Chapter VII. Spoken by the March Hare, in defense of the watch-buttering.

“It’s very easy to take more than nothing”

“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

Reference: Chapter VII. The Hatter’s logic at its most airtight and most annoying.

“Clean cup! clean cup! Move down!”

“Clean cup! clean cup! Move down!”

Reference: Chapter VII. The March Hare’s cry as the party perpetually shifts round the table — the cups are never washed because it is always tea-time.

“Then you shouldn’t talk”

“I don’t think—” Alice began.

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.

Reference: Chapter VII. The rudeness that finally drives Alice from the table.

“Who’s making personal remarks now?”

“Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly.

Reference: Chapter VII. Said after Alice observes, “Nobody asked your opinion” — the Hatter’s revenge for being scolded about his own first remark.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!”

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle—”

Reference: Chapter VII. The song that got him sentenced — “murdering the time” at the Queen’s concert.

“It’s always six o’clock now”

“It’s always six o’clock now.”

Reference: Chapter VII. Since his quarrel with Time, the Hatter is frozen at teatime.

“No room! No room!”

“No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming.

Reference: Chapter VII. The party’s greeting — shouted by all three at once.

“There’s plenty of room!”

“There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

Reference: Chapter VII. Alice’s reply — technically spoken by Alice, but it belongs to the scene.

“It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!”

“At any rate I’ll never go there again!” said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!”

Reference: Chapter VII. Alice’s verdict as she leaves.

“In that direction lives a Hatter”

“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.”

Reference: Chapter VI, “Pig and Pepper.” Spoken by the Cheshire Cat — the book’s official diagnosis.

“They’re getting on very well”

“They’re getting on very well,” he said in a choking voice: “each of them has been down about eighty-seven times.”

Reference: Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter VII, “The Lion and the Unicorn.” Hatta’s match report, delivered mid-bread-and-butter.

“This is a bit of it as I’m eating”

“It’s waiting for ‘em now,” said Hatta: “this is a bit of it as I’m eating.”

Reference: Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter VII. The white bread and the brown, personally taste-tested.

“Don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot”

“Give your evidence,” said the King; “and don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.”

Reference: Chapter XI, “Who Stole the Tarts?” Spoken by the King of Hearts to the Hatter, first witness for the prosecution.

“You may go”

“You may go,” said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.

Reference: Chapter XI. The Hatter’s exit from the trial — shoes and all.

“Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie”

“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—”

Reference: Chapter VII. The Dormouse’s story — the names encode Lorina Charlotte, Alice, and Edith Liddell.

“They lived on treacle”

“They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.

Reference: Chapter VII. The well is a treacle well — a real Oxfordshire thing (chalybeate springs at Binsey).

Carroll’s own answer to the riddle

“Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!”

Reference: Preface to the 86th thousand of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1896) — “merely an afterthought,” Carroll insisted. See the riddles page for the full story.