Roald Dahl was a British novelist, poet, and a short story writer. Loved as children’s author, he gave us some wonderful and wise words. These Roald Dahl quotes about power of dreams, love, imagination, etc., are sure to inspire many.
These magical quotes are quite famous. Even those who have not read his books also are familiar with some of them. He wrote in a simple language – a language that can be understood even by children and also very appreciated by the adults often reading the books to the children.
His books contain extraordinary imagination and they are also full of life lessons. Here are some most amazing Roald Dahl quotes which are loved by children and adults alike.
Roald Dahl Quotes
“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place, you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”
“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.”
“I’m wondering what to read next.” Matilda said. “I’ve finished all the children’s books.”
“It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.”
“You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.”
“A little magic can take you a long way.”
“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.”
“A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.”
“There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.”
“It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.”
“Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog.”
“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
“Meanings is not important, said the BFG. I cannot be right all the time. Quite often I is left instead of right.”
“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.”
“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.”
“It’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself.”
“An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.”
“Never grow up…always down.”
“Don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”
“If I were a headmaster I would get rid of the history teacher and get a chocolate teacher instead.”
“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.”
“I understand what you’re saying, and your comments are valuable, but I’m gonna ignore your advice.”
“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.”
“A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones.”
“Life is a series of thousands of tiny miracles. Notice them.”
“No book ever ends when it’s full of friends.”
“But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES.”
“I don’t want a grown-up person at all. A grown-up won’t listen to me; he won’t learn.”
“All the reading she had done had given her a view of life they had never seen.”
“She resented being told constantly that she was stupid, when she knew she wasn’t.”
“If I had my way, I would remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead.”
“No-one got rich being honest, the customers have to be diddled.”
“Matilda longed for her parents to be good and loving and understanding and honorable 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.”
“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.”
“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?”
“Wash your face, comb your hair, scrub your hands, brush your teeth, blow your nose, cut your nails, polish your shoes, iron your shirt, and for heaven’s sake, get all that mud off your pants! You must get ready, my boy! You must get ready for the biggest day of your life!”
“I do have a blurred memory of sitting on the stairs and trying over and over again to tie one of my shoelaces, but that is all that comes back to me of school itself.”
“Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.”
“But they can’t be real people,” Charlie said. “Of course they’re real people,” Mr Wonka answered. “They’re Oompa-Loompas.”
“Everything else in your life disappears and you look at your bit of paper and get completely lost in what you’re doing. You do become another person for a moment. Time disappears completely.”
“You can write about anything for children as long as you’ve got humor.”
“Grown-ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”
“When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important; a stodgy parent is not fun at all! What a child wants – and deserves – is a parent who is sparky!”
“Two rights don’t equal a left.”
“There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards.”
“You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.”
“Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It’s made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!”
“’My dear young fellow,’ the Old-Green-Grasshopper said gently, ‘there are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.”
“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.“I’ve always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn’t I?”
“I’ve also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It’s sure to be a phony.”
“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.”
“Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted. He lived happily ever after.”
“Well, maybe it started that way. As a dream, but doesn’t everything. Those buildings. These lights. This whole city. Somebody had to dream about it first. And maybe that is what I did. I dreamed about coming here, but then I did it.”
“However small the chance might be of striking lucky; the chance is there. The chance had to be there.”
“We must hurry!’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘We have so much time and so little to do! No! Wait! Strike that! Reverse it!’”
“Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Did they preach one thing and practice another, these men of God?”
“Pain was something we were expected to endure. But I doubt very much if you would be entirely happy today if a doctor threw a towel in your face and jumped on you with a knife.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I never get any protests from children. All you get are giggles of mirth and squirms of delight. I know what children like.”
“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.”
“All Norwegian children learn to swim when they are very young because if you can’t swim it is difficult to find a place to bathe.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn’t be exciting if they didn’t.”
“Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.”
“Whipped cream isn’t whipped cream at all if it hasn’t been whipped with whips, just like poached eggs isn’t poached eggs unless it’s been stolen in the dead of the night.”
“I’ve heard tell that what you imagine sometimes comes true.”
“As the night gets dark, let your worries fade. sleep peacefully knowing you’ve done all you can do for today.”
“You have to keep your bottom on the chair and stick it out. Otherwise, if you start getting in the habit of walking away when you’re stuck you’ll never get it done.”
“Some children are spoiled and it is not their fault, it is their parents.”
“If my books can help children become readers, then I feel I have accomplished something important.”
Apply these Roald Dahl Quotes to inspire your week
Did you know Dahl wrote many of his stories in a little shed of his garden? He wore many caps (hats) and was also a spy and a fighter pilot in World War II. He was a very interesting character according to many who knew him! And he was loved as one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century. He wrote almost 50 books, many screenplays, poems and short stories.
Nearly every child has read some Roald Dahl books because his tales bring a smile to everyone’s face and have universal humor. While children read them with delight, they also remind adults about their childhood. Which Roald Dahl quotes are your favorite?
Image Credit: “Roald Dahl posters” by Christchurch City Librariesis licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
I’m Alice Judy and AnQuotes is a fun hobby for me. We know that everyone loves a great quote and our mission here is simple – to be the best and most interesting quote site in the world! If you have quotes you would like us to cover, please contact us.
