Roald Dahl Quotations

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 do have a blurred memory of sitting on the stairs and trying over and over again to tie one of my shoelaces, but that is all that comes back to me of school itself.

All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed quite literally to wound other boys, and sometimes very severely.

My father was a Norwegian who came from a small town near Oslo. He broke his arm at the elbow when he was 14, and they amputated it.

Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

All Norwegian children learn to swim when they are very young because if you can't swim it is difficult to find a place to bathe.

I was a fighter pilot, flying Hurricanes all round the Mediterranean. I flew in the Western Desert of Libya, in Greece, in Syria, in Iraq and in Egypt.

The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home.

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.

When I walked to school in the mornings I would start out alone but would pick up four other boys along the way. We would set out together after school across the village green.

Nobody gets a nervous breakdown or a heart attack from selling kerosene to gentle country folk from the back of a tanker in Somerset.

Did they preach one thing and practice another, these men of God?

I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible.

The Bristol Channel was always my guide, and I was always able to draw an imaginary line from my bed to our house over in Wales. It was a great comfort.

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

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it.

I shot down some German planes and I got shot down myself, crashing in a burst of flames and crawling out, getting rescued by brave soldiers.

When I was 2, we moved into an imposing country mansion 8 miles west of Cardiff, Wales.

Pain was something we were expected to endure. But I doubt very much if you would be entirely happy today if a doctor threw a towel in your face and jumped on you with a knife.

Pear Drops were exciting because they had a dangerous taste. All of us were warned against eating them, and the result was that we ate them more than ever.

Prayers were held in Assembly Hall. We all perched in rows on wooden benches while teachers sat up on the platform in armchairs, facing us.

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

Some adults forget what it was like to be a kid,'' Burton says.

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it. - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I began to realise that the large chocolate companies actually did possess inventing rooms, and they took their inventing very seriously.

I devised a stunt for getting myself sent back home. My idea was that I should all of a sudden develop an attack of acute appendicitis.

All the figures show that film-makers and publishers go for the safe option,'' says Peter Hunt, children's literature professor at Cardiff University.

And Charlie, don't forget about what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted. He lived happily ever after. - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The Alexander Technique works... I recommend it enthusiastically to anyone who has neck pains or back pain.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you.

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A little magic can take you a long way.

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.

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Don't gobblefunk around with words.

Writing is mainly perspiration, not inspiration.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly.

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.

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

I'm wondering what to read next.

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

Life is more fun if you play games.

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?

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

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.

If you are good life is good.

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

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.

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!