Roald Dahl Quotes

“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.”

“Two wrongs don't make a right.”

“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.”

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

“Grown-ups are quirky creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”

“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it 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.”

“My darling," she said at last, are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?"
"I don't mind at all" I said.
It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.”

“If you are good life is good.”

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

“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.”

“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.”

“There aren’t many funny bits in Mr Tolkien either,’ Matilda said.
‘Do you think that all children’s books ought to have funny bits in them?’ Miss Honey asked.
‘I do,’ Matilda said. ‘Children are not so serious as grown-ups and love to laugh.”

“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.”

“Sometimes Matilda longed for a friend, someone like the kind, courageous people in her books.”

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.”

“There are no strangers in here, just friends you haven't met…”

“An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.”

“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.”

“Don't gobblefunk around with words.”

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

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

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

“I understand what you're saying, and your comments are valuable, but I'm gonna ignore your advice.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“We must hurry!’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘We have so much time and so little to do! No! Wait! Strike that! Reverse it!”

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”

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

“Mr. Wonka: "Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted."
Charlie Bucket: "What happened?"
Mr. Wonka: "He lived happily ever after.”

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

“Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.”

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

“A little magic can take you a long way.”

“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.”

“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?”

“Life is more fun if you play games.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I want an Oompa-Loompa!' screamed Veruca.”

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

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

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

“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!”

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

“I'd rather be fried alive and eaten by Mexicans.”

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

“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.”

“Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.”

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

“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?”

“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.”

“I shall never have a bath again," I said.
"Just dont have one too often," my grandmother said. "Once a month is quite enough for a sensible child." It was at times like these that I loved my grandmother more than ever.”

“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.”

“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.”

“If the Good Lord intended for us to walk, he wouldn't have invented rollar skates.”

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

“Badger: The cuss you are.
Mr. Fox: The cuss am I? Are you cussing with me?”

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

“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.”

“You ignorant little slug!" the Trunchbull bellowed. "You witless weed! You empty-headed hamster! You stupid glob of glue!”

“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.”