Roald Dahl Matilda Quotes & Sayings

Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous ... — Roald Dahl

I just think that we're all trying to make ourselves emaciated, in order to pretend that we're all disappearing, as we move forward in every level of society and it's so frightening. This is all a big reaction to the fact that there are more women in medical school than there are men now and I am pretty sure it will be the same soon in law schools and in business. — Meryl Streep

There aren't many funny bits in Mr Tolkien either,' Matilda said.
'Do you think that all children's books ought to have funny bits in them?' Miss Honey asked.
'I do,' Matilda said. 'Children are not so serious as grown-ups and love to laugh. — Roald Dahl

In terms of political contributions, the free speech rights of corporations I don't think deserve the same protections as the free speech rights of real living, breathing, voting humans. — Chris Coons

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

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

With frightening suddenness he now began ripping the pages out of the book in handfuls and throwing them in the waste-paper basket.
Matilda froze in horror. The father kept going. There seemed little doubt that the man felt some kind of jealousy. How dare she, he seemed to be saying with each rip of a page, how dare she enjoy reading books when he couldn't? How dare she? — 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

And occasionally a sweet chestnut. Miss Honey, wishing to change the subject for the moment, gave the names of all these to Matilda and taught her how to recognize them by the shape of their leaves and the pattern of the bark on their trunks. Matilda took all this — Roald Dahl

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

I am a caged bird,
rattling the bars of my cage,
with furious flutterings,
break my chains!
Free my spirit!
Let me fly with the wings you have drawn upon my soul
with heaven dipped ink — Steven James

Those who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. — Henry David Thoreau

Let these 2 quotes sink in. In tandem together.

"A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves as something to aim at." - Bruce Lee

"Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi

The key here is thing to take away from the tandem of these quotes is that even those you will never achieve perfection, the fact that you will aim towards unfathomable goals you will along the journey catch greatness. — Matthew Donnelly

You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. — Ernest Hemingway,

The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important. — Stephen King

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. — Roald Dahl

Books by Roald Dahl The BFG Boy: Tales of Childhood Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Danny the Champion of the World Dirty Beasts The Enormous Crocodile Esio Trot Fantastic Mr. Fox George's Marvelous Medicine The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me Going Solo James and the Giant Peach The Magic Finger Matilda The Minpins The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes Skin and Other Stories The Twits The Umbrella Man and Other Stories The Vicar of Nibbleswicke The Witches The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More — Roald Dahl

They hammered it with sometimes-guns, that violently assert the manchmal, this stuff, our everyday, against the always of the immer. — China Mieville

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

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. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

The books gave Matilda a comforting message: You are not alone." -Matilda — Roald Dahl

Did you know", Matilda said suddenly, "that the heart of a mouse beats at the rate of six hundred and fifty times a second?"
I did not," Miss Honey said smiling. "How absolutely fascinating. Where did you read that?"
In a book from the library," Matilda said. "And that means it goes so fast that you can't even hear the separate beats. It must sound like a buzz."
It must," Miss Honey said. — 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

Never be intimidated by what seems ominous, for BiG is only an accumulation of many smalls. — Richelle E. Goodrich

If God said it, I want to believe it. If God gives it, I want to receive it. If God shows it, I want to perceive it. If Satan stole it, I want to retrieve it. — Beth Moore

The traditional Chinese kingdoms operated under centuries of constraints on commerce. The building of walls on their borders had been a way of limiting such trade and literally keeping the wealth of the nation intact and inside the walls. For such administrators, giving up trade goods was the same as paying tribute to their neighbors, and they sought to avoid it as much as they could. The Mongols directly attacked the Chinese cultural prejudice that ranked merchants as merely a step above robbers by officially elevating their status ahead of all religions and professions, second only to government officials. In a further degradation of Confucian scholars, the Mongols reduced them from the highest level of traditional Chinese society to the ninth level, just below prostitutes but above beggars. — Jack Weatherford

She had little respect for politicians. Especially the 21st-century variety, who seemed more concerned with their own survival than making any kind of difference. In — Steve Berry

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. — Roald Dahl

Matilda longed for her parents to be good and loving and understanding and honourable and intelligent. The fact that they were none of these things was something she had to put up with. It was not easy to do so. But the new game she had invented of punishing one or both of them each time they were beastly to her made her life more or less bearable. Being very small and very young, the only power Matilda had over anyone in her family was brain-power. For sheer cleverness she could run rings around them all. But the fact remained that any five-year-old girl in any family was always obliged to do as she was told, however asinine the orders might be. — Roald Dahl

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 ... — 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

It was not for societies or states, that Christ died, but for men. — C.S. Lewis

One of the first serious attempts I made to write a novel was when I was in Grade 6 and I had read 'Matilda.' I wrote my own version and my teacher had it bound and permitted me to read it to the class - cementing my love of reading, writing and Roald Dahl! — Randa Abdel-Fattah

I have received more fulfillment and adulation than I would ever know what to do with in terms of show business. — Maria Bamford

Sometimes Matilda longed for a friend, someone like the kind, courageous people in her books. — Roald Dahl

No-one got rich being honest, the customers have to be diddled — 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

You chose books. I chose looks. — Roald Dahl