Roald Dahl Quotes

91 Sourced Quotes

Come right up close to me and I will show you something wonderful.

Roald Dahl
If I were a headmaster, I would get rid of the history teacher and get a chocolate teacher instead and my pupils would study a subject that affected all of them.

Roald Dahl
But it is impossible to replace a person one has loved with distractions.

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

Roald Dahl
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.

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

Roald Dahl
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!

Roald Dahl
"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
"I shall never have a bath again," I said. "Just don't 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.

Roald Dahl
Grown-ups are quirky creatures, full of quirks and secrets.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roald Dahl
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.

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
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
We is in Dream Country,' the BFG said. 'This is where all dreams is beginning.

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

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

Roald Dahl
Now that I am alone, I don't have to hide it; I don't have to hide anything any longer. I can let my face go because no one can see me; because there's twenty-one thousand feet between me and them... No, I don't have to press my teeth together or tighten the muscles of my jaw...

Roald Dahl
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
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.

Roald Dahl
"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
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.

Roald Dahl
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.

Roald Dahl
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.

Roald Dahl