I will tell you that there have been no failures in my life. I don't want to sound like some metaphysical queen,but there have been no failures. There have been some tremendous lessons.
"She can't do sums a bit!" the Queens said together, with great emphasis. "Can you do sums?" Alice said, turning suddenly on the White Queen, for she didn't like being found fault with so much. The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. "I can do Addition, if you give me time-but I can do Subtraction, under any circumstances!"
To the Looking-Glass world it was Alice that said 'I've a sceptre in hand, I've a crown on my head. Let the Looking-Glass creatures, whatever they be, Come and dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me.
'Always speak the truth - think before you speak - and write it down afterwards.'
'I'm sure I didn't mean - ' Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen interrupted her impatiently.
'That's just what I complain of! You should have meant! What do you suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning - and a child's more important than a joke, I hope.
Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.' I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!
Musings The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into the night, To plumb abysses dead to human sight; To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled, Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world. [click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby]
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!
"Can you do Addition?" the White Queen said. "What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?" "I don't know," said Alice. "I lost count." "She can't do Addition," the Red Queen interrupted.
In various talk th' instructive hours they past, Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last; One speaks the glory of the British queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes; At every word a reputation dies.
Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say:
We speak no treason, man; we say the King
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.
O, a kiss
Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip
Hath virgined it e'er since.