Roald Dahl Quotes

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

~ Roald Dahl

Life is more fun if you play games.

~ Roald Dahl

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

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,Go throw your TV set away,And in its place you can installA lovely bookshelf on the wall.Then fill the shelves with lots of books.

~ Roald Dahl

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

~ Roald Dahl

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

~ Roald Dahl

If you are good life is good.

~ Roald Dahl

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?

~ Roald Dahl

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

~ Roald Dahl

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.Brian Sibley: Or brains even?Oh gosh, yes, brains is one of the least. You can be a lovely person without brains, absolutely lovely. Kindness - that simple word. To be kind - it covers everything, to my mind.If you're kind that's it.

~ Roald Dahl

I is a dreamblowing giant,” the BFG said. “(...) I is scuddling away to other places to blow dreams into the bedrooms of sleeping children. Nice dreams. Lovely golden dreams. Dreams that is giving the dreamers a happy time.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

Don't gobblefunk around with words.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

You is getting nosier than a parker.

~ Roald Dahl

This allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cozy corner, devouring one book after another. When she had read every single children's book in the place, she started wandering round in search of something else.

~ Roald Dahl

No one who is good can ever be ugly.

~ Roald Dahl

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

~ Roald Dahl

There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.

~ Roald Dahl

Men were foolish and were made only so that they should die, while mountains and rivers went on for ever and did not notice the passing of time.

~ Roald Dahl

Hey, my spaghetti’s moving!” cried Mr. Twit, poking around in it with his fork.“It’s a new kind,” Mrs. Twit said, taking a mouthful from her own plate which of course had no worms. “It’s called Squiggly Spaghetti. It’s delicious. Eat it up while it’s nice and hot.

~ Roald Dahl

There's plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket, there's only five of them in the whole world, and that's all there's ever going to be. Only a dummy would give this up for something as common money. Are you a dummy?

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

...the more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves. If you never let them take any risks, then I believe they become very prone to injury. Boys should be allowed to climb tall trees and walk along the tops of high walls and dive into the sea from high rocks... The same with girls. I like the type of child who takes risks. Better by far than the one who never does so.

~ Roald Dahl

Down vith children! Do them in!Boil their bones and fry their skin!Bish them, sqvish them, bash them, mash them!Brrreak them, shake them, slash them, smash them!Offer chocs vith magic powder!Say “Eat up!” then say it louder.Crrram them full of sticky eats,Send them home still guzzling sveets.And in the morning little foolsGo marching off to separate schools.A girl feels sick and goes all pale.She yells, “Hey look! I've grrrown a tail!”A boy who's standing next to herScreams, “Help! I think I'm grrrowing fur!” Another shouts, “Vee look like frrreaks!There's viskers growing on our cheeks!”A boy who vos extremely tallCries out, “Vot's wrong? I'm grrrowing small!”Four tiny legs begin to sprrroutFrom everybody rrround about.And all at vunce, all in a trrrice,There are no children! Only MICE!

~ Roald Dahl

Children should never have baths,’ my grandmother said. ‘It's a dangerous habit.’‘I agree, Grandmamma.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

Words', he said, 'is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life. So you must simply try to be patient and stop squibbling. As I am telling you before, I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiff-squiddled around.

~ Roald Dahl

We may see a Creature with forty-nine headsWho lives in the desolate snow,And whenever he catches a cold (which he dreads)He has forty-nine noses to blow.'We may see the venomous Pink-Spotted ScrunchWho can chew up a man with one bite.It likes to eat five of them roasted for lunchAnd eighteen for its supper at night.'We may see a Dragon, and nobody knowsThat we won't see a Unicorn there.We may see a terrible Monster with toesGrowing out of the tufts of his hair.'We may see the sweet little Biddy-Bright HenSo playful, so kind and well-bred;And such beautiful eggs! You just boil them and thenThey explode and they blow off your head.'A Gnu and a Gnocerous surely you'll seeAnd that gnormous and gnorrible GnatWhose sting when it stings you goes in at the kneeAnd comes out through the top of your hat.'We may even get lost and be frozen by frost.We may die in an earthquake or tremor.Or nastier still, we may even be tossedOn the horns of a furious Dilemma.'But who cares! Let us go from this horrible hill!Let us roll! Let us bowl! Let us plunge!Let's go rolling and bowling and spinning untilWe're away from old Spiker and Sponge!

~ Roald Dahl

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

Never get out of bed, never go to the window, and never look behind the curtain.

~ Roald Dahl

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

~ Roald Dahl

You must remember that there was virtually no air travel in the early 1930s. Africa was two weeks away from England by boat and it took you about five weeks to get to China. These were distant and magic lands and nobody went to them just for a holiday. You went there to work. Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours and nothing is fabulous anymore.

~ Roald Dahl

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.

~ Roald Dahl

A stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY

~ Roald Dahl