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Roald Dahl Quotes
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Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and fighter pilot. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.Dahl was born in Wales to Norwegian immigrant parents, and he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He became a fighter pilot and, subsequently, an intelligence officer, rising to the rank of acting wing commander. He rose to prominence as a writer in the 1940s with works for children and for adults, and he became one of the world's best-selling authors. He has been referred to as "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century". His awards for contribution to literature include the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the British Book Awards' Children's Author of the Year in 1990. In 2008, The Times placed Dahl 16th on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".Dahl's short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children's books for their unsentimental, macabre, often darkly comic mood, featuring villainous adult enemies of the child characters. His books champion the kindhearted and feature an underlying warm sentiment. His works for children include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, The Twits, and George's Marvellous Medicine. His adult works include Tales of the Unexpected. Wikipedia  

✵ 13. September 1916 – 23. November 1990
Roald Dahl photo
Roald Dahl: 103   quotes 38   likes

Roald Dahl Quotes

“The maid screamed.
The Queen gasped.
Sophie waved.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

“Oh where, oh where had Snow White gone?
She'd found it easy, being pretty
To hitch a ride into the city.”

Roald Dahl book Revolting Rhymes

Source: Revolting Rhymes

“All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Life , People , Reading , Cheating

“There's nothin' you can get from a book that you can't get from a television fastah!"
-Harry Wormwood”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Books

“I'm afraid men are not always quite as clever as they think they are. You will learn that when you get a bit older, my girl.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Men , Girl , Thinking , Learning

“The snozberries taste like snozberries!”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“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.”

Roald Dahl James and the Giant Peach

Source: James and the Giant Peach

“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.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Children , Parent , Teachers

“Obscurity is never a virtue.”

Roald Dahl

“The little pig began to pray
But Wolfie blew his house away.
He shouted, "Bacon, Pork, and Ham!
Oh what a lucky wolf I am!"
And though he ate the pig quite fast,
He carefully kept the tail till last.”

Roald Dahl book Revolting Rhymes

Source: Revolting Rhymes

Wolf , Housing

“However small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance was there.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Chance

“You is getting nosier than a parker.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

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

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

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

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Source: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

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

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“my candle burns at both ends it will not last the night but arh my friends and oh my foes it gives a lovely light”

Roald Dahl book Boy

Edna St. Vincent Millay, in "First Fig" from A Few Figs from Thistles (1920); said to be a motto Roald Dahl lived by.
Misattributed
Variant: My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light.
Source: Boy: Tales of Childhood

Love , Light , Night

“What she needed was just one person, one wise and sympathetic grown-up who could help her.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Help , Personality

“… 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.”

Roald Dahl book Switch Bitch

Source: Switch Bitch

“Titchy little snapperwhippers like you should not be higgling around with an old sage and onions who is hundreds of years more than you.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

“A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Not original to this work, the proverb dates from at least the 18th century.
Source: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972), Ch. 12, 'Back to The Chocolate Factory' (p.88 in the Paperback edition (1998) from Puffin)

Men

“There's enough chocolate in there to fill every bathtub in the entire country! And all the swimming pools as well!”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Ch. 15, "The Chocolate Room"

Country

“Ah, but they is not killing their own kind," the BFG said. "Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

The BFG (1982)

Animals

“It is very difficult to phone people in China, Mr. President," said the Postmaster General, "The country is so full of Wings and Wongs, every time you wing you get the wong number.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

Source: Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972), Ch. 4, "The President" (p. 34 in the 1984 Bantam edition)

People , Time , Country

“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.”

Roald Dahl

As quoted in New Statesman (1983); partly quoted in "The Candy Man" by Margaret Talbot in The New Yorker (11 July 2005) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711crat_atlarge?printable=true

“Dreams is very mystical things," the BFG said. "Human beans is not understanding them at all. Not even their brainiest professors is understanding them.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

"Cool Dreams"
The BFG (1982)

Dreams , Understanding

“Little Billy’s mother was always telling him exactly what he was allowed to do and what he was not allowed to do. All the things he was allowed to do were boring. All the things he was not allowed to do were exciting. One of the things he NEVER NEVER was allowed to do, the most exciting of them all, was to go out through the garden gate all by himself and explore the world beyond.”

Roald Dahl book The Minpins

The Minpins (1991)

World

“It was all this, I think, that made me begin to have doubts about religion and even about God. If this person, I kept telling myself, was one of God’s chosen salesmen on earth, then there must be something very wrong about the whole business.”

Roald Dahl

"The Headmaster" in Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)

God , Religion , Business , Thinking

“You know, I'm not frightened. It's just that I will miss you all so much.”

Roald Dahl

Dahl's second-to-last words, hoping they will be profound