Roald Dahl Quotes & Sayings

I was thrilled. I had never met a famous writer before. I examined him closely as he sat in my office. What astonished me was that he looked so ordinary. There was nothing in the least unusual about him. His face, his conversation, his eyes behind the spectacles, even his clothes were all exceedingly normal. And yet here was a writer of stories who was famous the world over. His books had been read by millions of people. I expected sparks to be shooting out of his head, or at the very least, he should have been wearing a long green cloak and a floppy hat with a wide brim. But no. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

I signaled the bus-driver and he stopped the bus for me right outside the cottage, and I flew down the steps of the bus straight into the arms of the waiting mother. — Roald Dahl

I am totally convinced that most grown-ups have completely forgotten what is it like to be a child between the ages of five and then ... I can remember exactly what it was like. I am certain I can. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

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. — 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

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

Yesterday," he said, "we was not believing in giants, was we? Today we is not believing in snozzcumbers. Just because we happen not to have actually seen something with our own two little winkles, we think it is not existing. — Roald Dahl

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

'let's learn and note
The art of politics.
Let's teach you how to miss the boat
And how to drop some bricks,
And how to win the people's vote
And lots of other tricks.
Let's learn to make a speech a day
Upon the T.V. screen,
In which you never never say
Exactly what you mean. — Roald Dahl

As though it had come to the top of the hill and gone over a precipice, — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

When he was sure that all his precious dreams had — Roald Dahl

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

I has told you five or six times,' he said, 'and the third will be the last. — Roald Dahl

It was slowly beginning to dawn upon Henry that nothing is any fun if you can get as much of it as you want. Especially money. — Roald Dahl

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

Everybody was feeling happy now. The sun was shining brightly out of a soft blue sky and the day was calm. The giant peach, with the sunlight glinting on its side, was like a massive golden ball sailing upon a silver sea. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again. Do any of us children, she wondered, ever stop to ask ourselves where our teachers go when school is over for the day? Do we wonder if they live alone, or if there is a mother at home or a sister or a husband? — Roald Dahl

Good writing is essentially rewriting. — Roald Dahl

Had I not had children of my own, I would have never written books for children, nor would I have been capable of doing so. — Roald Dahl

let your love out — Roald Dahl

A dream is not needing anything. If it is a good one, it is waiting peaceably for ever until it is released and allowed to do its job. If it is a bad one, it is always fighting to get out. — Roald Dahl

See pills of every shape and size, Such fascinating colors, too - Some green, some pink, some brown, some blue. 'All right,' she says, 'let's try the brown.' She takes one pill and gulps it down. 'Yum-yum!' she cries. 'Hooray! What fun! They're chocolate-coated, every one!' She gobbles five, she gobbles ten, She stops her gobbling only when The last pill's gone. There are no more. Slowly she rises from the floor. She stops. She hiccups. Dear, oh dear, She starts to feel a trifle queer. You see, how could young Goldie know, For nobody had told her so, That Grandmama, her old relation Suffered from frightful constipation. This — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

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

So the music is saying something to them. It is sending a message. I do not think the human beans is knowing what that message is, but they is loving it just the same. — Roald Dahl

To shipbrokers, coal was black gold. — Roald Dahl

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

Two rights don't equal a left. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

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

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. — Roald Dahl

Give us strength, oh Lord, to let our children starve. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

I am suspicious of both facility and speed. — Roald Dahl

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

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

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. — Roald Dahl

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? — Roald Dahl

I is not understanding human beans at all,' the BFG said. 'You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans. Right or left?' 'Right,' Sophie said. 'But human beans is squishing each other all the time,' the BFG said. 'They is shootling guns and going up in aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.' He was right. Of course he was right and Sophie knew it. She was beginning to wonder whether humans were actually any better than giants. — Roald Dahl

But where, you might ask, is this book that the BFG wrote? It's right here. You've just finished reading it. — Roald Dahl

If she's a lady, I'm a vernicious knid. (Eddie Albert in Willy Wanka and the Chocolate Factory) — Roald Dahl

And Mrs. Fox said to her children, 'I should like you to know that if it wasn't for your father we should all be dead by now. Your father is a fantastic fox.'
Mr. Fox looked at his wife and she smiled. He loved her more than ever when she said things like that. — Roald Dahl

There's three of them in nightshirts! Two old women and one — Roald Dahl

I was already beginning to realize that the only way to conduct oneself in a situation where bombs rained down and bullets whizzed past, was to accept the dangers and all the consequences as calmly as possible. Fretting and sweating about it all was not going to help. — Roald Dahl

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

On this Thursday, on this particular walk to school, there was an old frog croaking in the stream behind the hedge as we went by.
'Can you hear him, Danny?'
'Yes,' I said,
'That is a bullfrog calling to his wife. He does it by blowing out his dewlap and letting it go with a burp.'
'What is a dewlap?' I asked.
'It's the loose skin on his throat. He can blow it up just like a balloon.'
'What happens when his wife hears him?'
'She goes hopping over to him. She is very happy to have been invited. But I'll tell you something very funny about the old bullfrog. He often becomes so pleased with the sound of his own voice that his wife has to nudge him several times before he'll stop his burping and turn round to hug her.'
That made me laugh.
'Dont laugh too loud,' he said, twinkling at me with his eyes. 'We men are not so very different from the bullfrog. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

Obscurity is never a virtue. — Roald Dahl

I asked my mum, who's a very clever psychotherapist, and she says that kids love stories about death; they need it, they need to have stories that deal with death and explain it, as a place to put their fears. — Roald Dahl

A bad girl is a far more dangerous thing than a bad boy. — Roald Dahl

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

Dreams is full of mystery and magic ... Do not try to understand them. — Roald Dahl

I doubt I would have written a line ... unless some minor tragedy had sort of twisted my mind out of the normal rut. — 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

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

There's no earthly way of knowing Which direction they are going! There's no knowing where they're rowing, Or which way the river's flowing! Not a speck of light is showing, So the danger must be growing, For the rowers keep on rowing, And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing. . . . — Roald Dahl

Some three years ago I drove down to Provence to spend a summer weekend with a lady who was interesting to me simply because she possessed an extraordinarily powerful muscle in a region where other women have no muscles at all. — Roald Dahl

Poor Cindy's heart was torn to shreds.
My Prince! She thought. He chops off heads!
How could I marry anyone
Who does that sort of thing for fun?
The Prince cried, Who's this dirty slut?
Off with her nut! Off with her nut! — Roald Dahl

She decided that every time her father or her mother was beastly to her, she would get her own back in some way or another. A small victory or two would help her to tolerate their idiocies and would stop her from going crazy. — 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 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 go down to my little hut, where it's tight and dark and warm, and within minutes I can go back to being six or seven or eight again. — Roald Dahl

What a nice child she is, Miss Honey thought. I don't care what her father said about her, she seems very quiet and gentle to me. And not a bit stuck up in spite of her brilliance. — 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

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

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. — Roald Dahl

Candy is dandy but liqueur is quicker. — Roald Dahl

Poor Earthworm,' the Ladybird said, whispering in James's ear. 'He loves to make everything into a disaster. He hates to be happy. He is only happy when he is gloomy. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

There are no strangers in here, just friends you haven't met ... — Roald Dahl

He should have burped," Charlie said. "Of course he should have burped," said Mr. Wonka. "I stood there shouting, 'Burp, you silly ass, burp, or you'll never come down again! But he didn't or couldn't or wouldn't, I don't know which. Maybe he was too polite. He must be on the moon by now." On the next door, it said, SQUARE CANDIES THAT LOOK ROUND. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

For whipping cream, of course. How can you whip cream without whips? — Roald Dahl

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

When you're writing a book, it's rather like going on a very long walk, across valleys and mountains and things, and you get the first view of what you see and you write it down. Then you walk a bit further, maybe up onto the top of a hill, and you see something else. Then you write that and you go on like that, day after day, getting different views of the same landscape really. The highest mountain on the walk is obviously the end of the book, because it's got to be the best view of all, when everything comes together and you can look back and see that everything you've done all ties up. But it's a very, very long, slow process. — Roald Dahl

You mean you live down here?' Matilda asked.
'I do', Miss Honey replied, but she said no more.
Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again. — Roald Dahl

No one who is good can ever be ugly. — Roald Dahl

Eschew all those beastly adjectives ... — Roald Dahl

And thus the journey ended. But the travelers lived on. — Roald Dahl

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

that ridiculous machine, That nauseating, foul, unclean, Repulsive television screen! — Roald Dahl

Unless one was going to become a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, an engineer or some other kind of professional person, I saw little point in wasting three or four years at Oxford or Cambridge, and I still hold this view. — Roald Dahl

I never get any protests from children. All you get are giggles of mirth and squirms of delight. I know what children like. — Roald Dahl

I'm wondering what to read next. — Roald Dahl

Lalalalalalallalalallalalalal have nothing to say — Roald Dahl

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

My darling," she said at last, are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?"
"I don't mind at all" I said.
It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you. — Roald Dahl

Fairy tales have always got to have something a bit scary for children - as long as you make them laugh as well. — Roald Dahl

All grown-ups appear as giants to small children. But Headmasters (and policemen) are the biggest giants of all and acquire a marvellously exaggerated stature. — Roald Dahl

There was an air of menace about them as they loped slowly across the plain with long lolloping strides, heading for the BFG. — Roald Dahl

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

I didn't know which direction I was going in. I just went on walking and calling out, walking and calling; and each time I called, I would stop and listen. But no answer came. — Roald Dahl

I always thought that a veruca was a sort of wart that you got on the sole of your foot! — Roald Dahl

If it's by an American it's certain to be filth. That's all they write about. — Roald Dahl

The beatings at Repton were more fierce and more frequent than anything I had yet experienced. And do not think for one moment that the future Archbishop of Canterbury objected to these squalid exercises. He rolled up his sleeves and joined in with gusto. His were the bad ones, the really terrifying occasions. Some of the beatings administered by this man of God, this future Head of the Church of England, were very brutal. To my certain knowledge he once had to produce a basin of water, a sponge and a towel so that the victim could wash the blood away afterwards. No joke, that. Shades of the Spanish Inquisition. — Roald Dahl