Lewis Carrol

[From "Through the Looking Glass"] "I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said
     Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
     "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.
     "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
     "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
     "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

[From "Through the Looking Glass"]
Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven
Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
Und aller-mumsige Burggoven
Dir mohmen Rath ausgraben.

[From "Through the Looking Glass"] "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"

[From "Alice in Wonderland"]
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

     "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
     "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
     "Too proud?" the other enquired.
     Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one can't help growing older."
     "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."

[From "Through the Looking Glass"]
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright --
And this was very odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."