“That was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same.”

“It's just that that was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same.”

“No wonder Wonderland isn't funny to read anymore: We live there full time. We need a break from it.”

“It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all.”

“But now? Now? Children in the twentieth and this early twenty-first century hated the Alice books, couldn't read them, and why should they? Their world had strayed into madness long ago. Look at the planet. Rain is acid, poisonous. Sun causes cancer. Sex=death. Children murder other children. Parents lie, leaders lie, the churches have less moral credibility than Benetton ads.And the faces of missing children staring out from milk cartons-imagine all those poor Lost Boys, and Lost Girls, not in Neverland but lost here, lost now. No wonder Wonderland isn't funny anymore: We live there full-time. We need a break from it.”

“The answer of course, is that the clock isn't meant to measure earthly time, but the time of the soul. Redemption and condemnation time. For the soul, each instant is always a minute short of judgment. ”

“When you get right down to it, every collection of letters is a magic spell, even it it's a moronic proclamation ... Words have their impact, girl. Mind your manners. I may not know how to fly but I know how to read, and that's almost the same thing.”