Roald Dahl Quotes

You must remember that here in Norway we are used to that sort of thing. There are witches everywhere.

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.

Two rights don't equal a left.

What's happened? screamed Mrs. Twit. They stood in the middle of the room, looking up. All the furniture, the big table, the chairs, the sofa, the lamps, the little side tables, the cabinet with bottles of beer in it, the ornaments, the electric heater, the carpet, everything was stuck upside down to the ceiling. The pictures were upside down on the walls. And the floor they were standing on was absolutely bare. What's more, it had been painted white to look like the ceiling.

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

And when I protested a bit more, I remember he said, 'My dear Lady Ponsonby, there's nothing immoral about this. Art is only immoral when practiced by amateurs. It's the same with medicine. You wouldn't refuse to undress before your doctor, would you?

Both Matilda and Lavender were enthralled. It was quite clear to them that they were at this moment standing in the presence of a master. Here was somebody who had brought the art of skulduggery to the highest point of perfection, somebody, moreover, who was willing to risk life and limb in pursuit of her calling. They gazed in wonder at this goddess, and suddenly even the boil on her nose was no longer a blemish but a badge of courage.

You chose books. I chose looks.

The maid screamed.
The Queen gasped.
Sophie waved.

Personally, I mistrust all handsome men. The superficial pleasures of this life come too easily to them, and they seem to walk the world as though they themselves were personally responsible for their own good looks. I don't mind a woman being pretty. That's different. But in a man, I'm sorry, but somehow or other I find it downright offensive.

let your love out

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

And Matilda found, to her surprise, that life could be fun. She decided to have as much fun as possible. After all, she was a very smart kid.

Of course he enticed them!" "Well now," said the sergeant, propping his bicycle carefully against one of our pumps. "This is a very hinterestin' haccusation, very hinterestin' indeed, because I hain't never 'eard of nobody hen-ticin' a pheasant across six miles of fields and open countryside. 'Ow do you think this hen-ticin' was performed, Mr. 'Azell, if I may hask?" "Don't ask me how he did it because I don't know!" shouted Mr. Hazell. "But he's done it all right! The proof is all around you! All my finest birds are sitting here in this dirty little filling station when they ought to be up in my own wood getting ready for the shoot!" The words poured out of Mr. Hazell's mouth like hot lava from an erupting volcano. "Am I correct," said Sergeant Samways, "am I habsolutely haccurate in thinkin' that today is the day of your great shootin' party, Mr. 'Azell?

When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all. Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children's books.

If you can think of anything more terrifying than that happening to you in the middle of the night, then let's hear about it.

Good writing is essentially rewriting.

You are still yourself in everything except your appearance. You've still got your own mind and your own brain and your own voice, and thank goodness for that.

By sticking out his tongue and curling it sideways to explore the hairy jungle around his mouth, he was always able to find a tasty morsel here and there to nibble on.

Mr. Bucket was the only person in the family with a job. He worked in a toothpaste factory, where he sat all day long at a bench and screwed the little caps onto the tops of the tubes of toothpaste after the tubes had been filled.

The watchers below could see the chocolate swishing around the boy in the pipe, and they could see it building up behind him in a solid mass, pushing against the blockage. The pressure was terrific. Something had to give. Something did give, and that something was Augustus. WHOOF! Up he shot again like a bullet in the barrel of a gun.

Everything and all of them were being rattled around like peas inside an enormous rattle that was being rattled by a mad giant who refused to stop.

The reason I collect good ideas is because plots themselves are very difficult indeed to come by.

No one who is good can ever be ugly.

The act of copulation is like that of picking the nose. It's all right to be doing it yourself but it is a singularly unattractive spectacle for the onlooker.

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

I regard each sentence as a little wheel ... Now and again I try to put a really big one next to a very small one in such a way that the big one, turning slowly, will make the small one spin so fast that it hums. Very tricky, that.

I have found it impossible to talk to anyone about my problems. I couldn't face the embarrassment, and anyway I lack the courage. Any courage I had was knocked out of me when I was young. But now, all of sudden I have a sort of desperate wish to tell everything to somebody.

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

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.

This, he thought, is what hell must be like. Hell without heat. There was something unholy about it all, something unbelievably diabolical.

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.

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.

Tortoise, Tortoise get bigger, bigger. Come on Tortoise grow up, puff up, shoot up! Spring up, Blow up swell up! Gorge! Guzzle! Stuff! Gulp! Put on fat, Tortoise, Put on fat! get on, Get on! Gobble food!!

I will not pretend I wasn't petrified. I was. But mixed in with the awful fear was a glorious feeling of excitement. Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn't be exciting if they didn't.

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

The teeth of the dreadly viper is still sticking into me!' he yelled. 'I is feeling the teeth sticking into my anklet!

Candy is dandy but liqueur is quicker.

What on earth were you trying to do, make yourself look handsome or something? You look like someone's grandmother gone wrong!

There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards.

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

You chose books, I chose looks . Now see the difference?

I is sometimes hearing faraway music coming from the stars in the sky.' A

Perhaps it's chasing me. But I don't think it will ever catch me because I am moving fast.

The life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman.

It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.

That's why they always put two blank pages at the back of the atlas. They're for new countries. You're meant to fill them in 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.

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

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

It was one of those golden autumn afternoons and there were blackberries and splashes of old man's beard in the hedges, and the hawthorn berries were ripening scarlet for the birds when the cold winter came along. There were tall trees here and there on either side, oak and sycamore and ash and occasionally a sweet chestnut.

The only meals they could afford were bread and margarine for breakfast, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch, and cabbage soup for supper.

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

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

loading the dreams, the BFG and Sophie disappeared over the mountains on

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.

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

I therefore invite you all, Mr Fox went on, 'to stay here with me for ever.'
For ever!' they cried. 'My goodness! How marvellous!' And Rabbit said to Mrs Rabbit, 'My dear, just think! We're never going to be shot again in our lives!'
We will make,' said Mr Fox, 'a little underground village, with streets and houses on each side - seperate houses for Badgers and Moles and Rabbits and Weasels and Foxes. And every day I will go shopping for you all. And every day we will eat like kings.'
The cheering that followed this speech went on for many minutes.

I cannot be helping it if I sometimes is saying things a little squiggly. I

The adult is the enemy of the child because of the awful process of civilizing this thing that, when it is born, is an animal with no manners, no moral sense at all.

I can see you is not born last week.

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.

I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel. If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly. That, I think, is fun and makes an impact.

There's more food in one bottle of beer, me lad, than twenty sandwiches.

You can write about anything for children as long as you've got humour.

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.

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

She noticed immediately that they were now in an altogether paler country. The sun had disappeared above a film of vapour. The air was becoming cooler every minute. The land was flat and treeless and there seemed to be no colour in it at all. Every minute, the mist became thicker. The air became colder still and everything became paler and paler until soon there was nothing but grey and white all around them. They were in a country of swirling mists and ghostly vapours. There was some sort of grass underfoot but it was not green. It was ashy grey.

By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this.

A good plot is like a dream.

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?

Matilda said nothing. She simply sat there admiring the wonderful effect of her own handiwork. Mr Wormwood's fine crop of black hair was now a dirty silver, the colour this time of a tightrope-walker's tights that had not been washed for the entire circus season.

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.

A few weeks later, in the wood,
I came across Miss Riding Hood.
But what a change! No cloak of red,
No silly hood upon her head.
She said, 'Hello, and do please note
My lovely furry wolfskin coat.

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

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.

This dream is continuing very nice. It has a very dory-hunky ending.

There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose."
Where?"
In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.

In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks. But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES. The most important thing you should know about REAL WITCHES is this. Listen very carefully. Never forget what is coming next.

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

Never grow up...always down.

Anyone can ask questions," said Mr. Wonka. "It's the answers that count.

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

This Giant had some sort of magic in his legs.

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

Life is more fun if you play games.

The very rich are enormously resentful of bad weather. It is the one discomfort that their money cannot do anything about.

I like enthusiasts of any kind.

Ah, Piglet, you must never trust
Young ladies from the upper crust.

You mean to tell me,' I said, 'that every time I pleasure a young lady, I shoot into her two thousand million spermatozoa?' 'Absolutely.' 'All squiggling and squirming and thrashing about?' 'Of course.' 'No wonder it gives her a charge,' I said. A.

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

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

The next day she carried her secret weapon to school in her satchel. She was tingling with excitement. She was longing to tell matilda about her plan of battle. In fact, she wanted to tell the whole class. But she finally decided to tell nobody. It was better that way, because then no one, even when put under the most severe torture, would be able to name her as a culprit.

To shipbrokers, coal was black gold.

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.

He turned and reached behind him for the chocolate bar, then he turned back again and handed it to Charlie. Charlie grabbed it and quickly tore off the wrapper and took an enormous bite. Then he took another ... and another ... and oh, the joy of being able to cram large pieces of something sweet and solid into one's mouth! The sheer blissful joy of being able to fill one's mouth with rich solid food!
'You look like you wanted that one, sonny,' the shopkeeper said pleasantly.
Charlie nodded, his mouth bulging with chocolate.

Good strong hair,' he was fond of saying, 'means there's a good strong brain underneath.' 'Like Shakespeare,' Matilda had once said to him. 'Like who?' 'Shakespeare, Daddy.' 'Was he brainy?' 'Very, Daddy.' 'He had masses of hair, did he?' 'He was bald, Daddy.

Do you like vegetables?" Sophie asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards a slightly less dangerous kind of food.
"You is trying to change the subject," the Giant said sternly. "We is having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean. The human bean is not a vegetable.

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 air became colder still and everything became paler