In Rage Bob Woodward reports Jered Kushner’s advise that, to understand Donald Trump’s Oval Office and West Wing read Alice In Wonderland. Regarding the Presidential father-in-law, Kurcher quotes the Cheshire Cat, “If you don’t know where you are going any path will get you there.”
Context makes this guidance more instructive.
. . . a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning for ear to ear.
‘Please would you tell me, ‘said Alice, ‘ . . . why your cat grins like that’?
‘It’s a Cheshire Cat,’ said the Duchess . . .
‘I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I did not know that cats COULD grin.’
‘They all can,’ said the Duchess; ‘and most of them do.’
(Later) . . . she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree as few yards off.
The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. . . .
‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rater timidly, . . . it only grinned a little wwider. . . . ‘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.
‘—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’*
The Cheshire Cat’s defining characteristic, first to appear and last to disappear, the Grin.
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland*
Lewis Carroll
Cheshire Cat by Sir John Tenniel, original 1865 edition.
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