Quotes from Roald Dahl

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

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. Brian Sibley: Or brains even? Oh gosh, yes, brains is one of the least. You can be a lovely person without brains, absolutely lovely. Kindness - that simple word. To be kind - it covers everything, to my mind. If you're kind that's it.

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

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

We have tears in our eyes As we wave our goodbyes, We so loved being with you, we three. So do please now and then Come and see us again, The Giraffe and the Pelly and me. All you do is to look At a page in this book Because that's where we always will be. No book ever ends When it's full of your friends The Giraffe and the Pelly and me.

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.

I shall never have a bath again, I said. Just dont 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.

If the Good Lord intended for us to walk, he wouldn't have invented rollar skates.

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

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. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television.

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.

Badger: The cuss you are. Mr. Fox: The cuss am I? Are you cussing with me?

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

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

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.

I'm afraid men are not always quite as clever as they think they are. You will learn that when you get a bit older, my girl.

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.

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.