“I don't see how he can ever finish, if he doesn't begin.”

“Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

“Suddenly the Professor started as if he had been electrified. "Why, I had nearly forgotten the most important part of the entertainment! The Other Professor is to recite a Tale of a Pig I mean a Pig-Tale," he corrected himself. "It has Introductory Verses at the beginning, and at the end."It can’t have Introductory Verses at the end, can it?" said Sylvie.Wait till you hear it," said the Professor: "then you will see. I’m not sure it hasn’t some in the middle, as well.”

“If there's no meaning in it," said the King, "that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any. And yet I don't know," he went on [...]; "I seem to see some meaning in them, after all.”

“He wasn't running," said Bruno, "and he wasn't crawling. He went struggling along like a portmanteau. And he held his chin ever so high in the air—”

“I don’t suppose there’ll be a tree left standing, for ever so far around, by the time we’re finished.’” Tweedledum to tweedledee [They are fighting over a rattle]. Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, p. 156”

“I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorised in attaching any meaning he likes to a word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, "Let it be understood that by the word 'black' I shall always mean 'white,' and by the word 'white' I shall always mean 'black,'" I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I think it.”