Roald Dahl Quotations | Page 2

All you do is to look / At a page in this book / Because that's where we always will be. / No book ever ends / When it's full of your friends / The Giraffe and the Pelly and me.

We all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine.

Now that I am alone, I don't have to hide it; I don't have to hide anything any longer. I can let my face go because no one can see me; because there's twenty-one thousand feet between me and them... No, I don't have to press my teeth together or tighten the muscles of my jaw...

Here it is,' Nigel said. Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs FFI, Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs LTY. That spells difficulty.' How perfectly ridiculous!' snorted Miss Trunchbull. 'Why are all these women married?

Fiona has the same glacial beauty of an iceburg, but unlike the iceburg she has absolutely nothing below the surface.

The fine line between roaring with laughter and crying because it's a disaster is a very, very fine line. You see a chap slip on a banana skin in the street and you roar with laughter when he falls slap on his backside. If in doing so you suddenly see he's broken a leg, you very quickly stop laughing and it's not a joke anymore.

She might even be your lovely school-teacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment. Look carefully at that teacher. Perhaps she is smiling at the absurdity of such a suggestion. Don't let that put you off. It could be part of cleverness. I am not, of course, telling you for one second that your teacher actually is a witch. All I am saying is that she might be one. It is most unlikely. But--here comes the big "but"--not impossible.

I go down to my little hut, where it's tight and dark and warm, and within minutes I can go back to being six or seven or eight again.

The snozberries taste like snozberries!

Me is the only one what won't be gobbled up because giants is never eating giants

It was slowly beginning to dawn upon Henry that nothing is any fun if you can get as much of it as you want. Especially money.

Rainbow drops - suck them and you can spit in six different colours.

When you're old enough to write a book for children, by then you'll have become a grown up and have lost all your jokeyness. Unless you're an undeveloped adult and still have an enormous amount of childishness in you.

We is in Dream Country,' the BFG said. 'This is where all dreams is beginning.

I was observing her closely as I talked, and after a while I began to get the impression that she was not, in fact, quite so merry and smiling a girl as I had been led to believe at first. She seemed to be coiled in herself, as though with a secret she was jealously guarding. The deep-blue eyes moved too quickly about the room, never settling or resting on one thing for more than a moment; and over all her face, though so faint that they might not even have been there, those small downward lines of sorrow.

I think I have this thing where everybody has to think I'm the greatest.And if they aren't completely knocked out and dazzled and slightly intimidated by me, I don't feel good about myself.

When writing about oneself, one must strive to be truthful. Truth is more important than modesty.

When you're writing, it's rather like going on a very long walk

Well, first of all," said the BFG, "human beans is not really believing in giants, is they? Human beans is not thinking we exist.

careful those who fight with monsters, that they might become monsters themeselves.

The secret of life', he said, 'is to become very very good at somethin' that's very very 'ard to do.

I'm right and you're wrong, I'm big and you're small, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Homesickness is a bit like seasickness. You don't know how awful it is unti you get it, and when you do, it hits you right in the top of the stomach and you want to die.

To shipbrokers, coal was black gold.

In any event, parents never underestimated the abilities of their own children. Quite the reverse. Sometimes it was well nigh impossible for a teacher to convince the proud father or mother that their beloved offspring was a complete nitwit.

What a fortunate fellow I am, I kept telling myself. Nobody has ever had such a lovely time as this!

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.

There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.

... and when he put his mind to it, he could make his words coil themselves around and around the listener until they held her in some sort of a mild hypnotic spell.

lalalalalalallalalallalalalal have nothing to say

I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.

You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.

If my books can help children become readers then I feel I have accomplished something important

But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.

Poor Earthworm,' the Ladybird said, whispering in James's ear. 'He loves to make everything into a disaster. He hates to be happy. He is only happy when he is gloomy.

Then suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness!

It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.

Meanings is not important, said the BFG. I cannot be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right.

If you are good life is good.

Bunkum and tummyrot! You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he'd said 'What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?' He wouldn't even have started.

What I mean and what I say is two different things," the BFG announced rather grandly.

A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans?

Life is more fun if you play games.

I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

I'm wondering what to read next.

The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.

Writing is mainly perspiration, not inspiration.

Don't gobblefunk around with words.

For me, the pleasure of writing comes with inventing stories.

You seemed so far away," Miss Honey whispered, awestruck. "Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings," Matilda said. "It was wonderful.

Hooray!" said the Chief of the Army. "Let's blow everyone up! Bang-bang! Bang-bang!

There is something about very cold weather that gives one an enormous appetite. Most of us find ourselves beginning to crave rich steaming stews and hot apple pies and all kinds of delicious warming dishes; and because we are all a great deal luckier than we realize, we usually get what we want—or near enough.

The matter with human beans," the BFG went on, "is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles.

Words," he said, "is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life.

I've always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn't I?

Mr. Twit was a twit. He was born a twit. And, now at the age of sixty, he was a bigger twit than ever.

It is most unlikely. But--here comes the big "but"--not impossible.

The walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.

I cannot for the life of me understand why small children take so long to grow up. I think they do it deliberately, just to annoy me.

If I had my way, I'd remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead.

We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.

I am the maker of music, the dreamer of dreams!

I've heard tell that what you imagine sometimes comes true. -Grandpa Joe

All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen.

Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...

Of course they're real people. They're Oompa-Loompas...Imported direct from Loompaland...And oh what a terrible country it is! Nothing but thick jungles infested by the most dangerous beasts in the world - hornswogglers and snozzwangers and those terrible wicked whangdoodles. A whangdoodle would eat ten Oompa-Loompas for breakfast and come galloping back for a second helping.

A little magic can take you a long way.

The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.

Whipped cream isn't whipped cream at all if it hasnt been whipped with whips, just like poached eggs isn't poached eggs unless it's been stolen in the dead of the night.

My dear young fellow,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said gently, 'there are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven't started wondering about yet.

Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!

Never mind about 1066 William the Conqueror, 1087 William the Second. Such things are not going to affect one?s life...but 1932 the Mars Bar and 1936 Maltesers and 1937 the Kit Kat - these dates are milestones in history and should be seared into the memory of every child in the country.

The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.

You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.

A BOOK?! WHAT D'YOU WANNA FLAMING BOOK FOR?...WE'VE GOT A LOVELY TELLY WITH A 12-INCH SCREEN AND NOW YA WANNA BOOK!

And don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.

Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you.

It's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself

So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.

When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: A stodgy parent is not fun at all! What a child wants - and DESERVES - is a parent who is SPARKY!

It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be.

A life is made up of a great number of small incidents, and a small number of great ones.

Kindness - that simple word. To be kind - it covers everything, to my mind. If you're kind that's it.

I'm wondering what to read next." Matilda said. "I've finished all the children's books.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Some people when they have taken too much and have been driven beyond the point of endurance, simply crumble and give up. There are others, though they are not many, who will for some reason always be unconquerable. You meet them in time of war and also in time of peace. They have an indomitable spirit and nothing, neither pain nor torture nor threat of death, will cause them to give up.

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.

No book ever ends, when it's full of your friends.

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.

So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony.

We make realities out of our dreams and dreams out of our realities. We are the dreamers of the dream.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.