110+ Roald Dahl Quotes On Reading Books, Childhood And Kindness

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and fighter pilot. He is best known for writing children's books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and James and the Giant Peach. He is considered one of the most influential and beloved storytellers of the 20th century. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Roald Dahl on reading books, love, childhood.

Top 10 Roald Dahl Quotes

1. If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
2. 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.
3. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
4. 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.
5. Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.
6. 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.
7. I was a fighter pilot, flying Hurricanes all round the Mediterranean. I flew in the Western Desert of Libya, in Greece, in Syria, in Iraq and in Egypt.
8. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it.
9. Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!
10. A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.

Roald Dahl Image Quotes

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men. — Roald Dahl

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

Roald Dahl Short Quotes

• It's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself
• We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.
• Some children are spoiled and it is not their fault, it is their parents.
• Two wrongs don't make a right.
• Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.
• If I had my way, I'd remove January from the calendar altogether and have an extra July instead.
• Rainbow drops - suck them and you can spit in six different colours.
• I've always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn't I?
• What I mean and what I say is two different things," the BFG announced rather grandly.
• When I was 2, we moved into an imposing country mansion 8 miles west of Cardiff, Wales.

Roald Dahl Quotes About Reading Books

A Message to Children Who Have Read This Book - When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY. — 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

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

I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

I is reading it hundreds of times,' the BFG said. 'And I is still reading it and teaching new words to myself and how to write them. It is the most scrumdiddlyumptious story.' Sophie took the book out of his hand. 'Nicholas Nickleby,' she read aloud. 'By Dahl's Chickens,' the BFG said. — Roald Dahl

If my books can help children become readers then I feel I have accomplished something important. — Roald Dahl

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

Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful. — Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Quotes About Love

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

So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall. — Roald Dahl

It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you. — Roald Dahl

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

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. — 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 BOOK?! WHAT D'YOU WANNA FLAMING BOOK FOR?...WE'VE GOT A LOVELY TELLY WITH A 12-INCH SCREEN AND NOW YA WANNA BOOK! — 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

What a fortunate fellow I am, I kept telling myself. Nobody has ever had such a lovely time as this! — 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

Roald Dahl Quotes About Life

Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you. — 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

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

The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

The secret of life', he said, 'is to become very very good at somethin' that's very very 'ard to do. — 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

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. — Roald Dahl

Life is more fun if you play games. — Roald Dahl

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

Roald Dahl Quotes About Kindness

Kindness - that simple word. To be kind - it covers everything, to my mind. If you're kind that's it. — Roald Dahl

There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity; maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

I like enthusiasts of any kind. — 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

Roald Dahl Quotes About Writing

Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people. — Roald Dahl

Good writing is essentially rewriting. — Roald Dahl

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

Writing is mainly perspiration, not inspiration. — Roald Dahl

When you're old enough to write a book for children, by then you'll have become a grown up and have lost all your jokeyness. Unless you're an undeveloped adult and still have an enormous amount of childishness in you. — Roald Dahl

When I first thought about writing the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I never originally meant to have children in it at all! — Roald Dahl

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

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

By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this. — Roald Dahl

You can write about anything for children as long as you've got humour. — Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Quotes About Imaginative

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. — Roald Dahl

There is no place I know that compares to pure imagination. — Roald Dahl

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

Roald Dahl Quotes About Writer

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. — 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

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 life of a writer is absolute hell compared to the life of a businessman. — Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Quotes About Norwegian

My father was a Norwegian who came from a small town near Oslo. He broke his arm at the elbow when he was 14, and they amputated it. — Roald Dahl

Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English. — Roald Dahl

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. — Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Quotes About School

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. — 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

Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home. — Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Famous Quotes And Sayings

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men. — Roald Dahl

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

We make realities out of our dreams and dreams out of our realities. We are the dreamers of the dream. — Roald Dahl

The Alexander Technique works... I recommend it enthusiastically to anyone who has neck pains or back pain. — 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

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

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

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

Pear Drops were exciting because they had a dangerous taste. All of us were warned against eating them, and the result was that we ate them more than ever. — 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

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

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

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

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. — Roald Dahl

... and when he put his mind to it, he could make his words coil themselves around and around the listener until they held her in some sort of a mild hypnotic spell. — 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 regard each sentence as a little wheel... Now and again I try to put a really big one next to a very small one in such a way that the big one, turning slowly, will make the small one spin so fast that it hums. Very tricky, that. — Roald Dahl

A girl should think about making herself look attractive so she can get a good husband later on. Looks is more important than books, Miss Hunky..." "The name is Honey," Miss Honey said. "Now look at me," Mrs Wormwood said. "Then look at you. You chose books. I chose looks. — 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

If you are good life is good. — Roald Dahl

Homesickness is a bit like seasickness. You don't know how awful it is unti you get it, and when you do, it hits you right in the top of the stomach and you want to die. — Roald Dahl

Prayers were held in Assembly Hall. We all perched in rows on wooden benches while teachers sat up on the platform in armchairs, facing us. — Roald Dahl

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

The cuss am I? Are you cussing with me? — 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

The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. — Roald Dahl

To shipbrokers, coal was black gold. — 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

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

The reason I collect good ideas is because plots themselves are very difficult indeed to come by. — Roald Dahl

But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there. — Roald Dahl

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

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

Sex is like nose picking. It's fine as long as you practice it yourself, but it's disgusting watching someone else doing it. — 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

Fiona has the same glacial beauty of an iceburg, but unlike the iceburg she has absolutely nothing below the surface. — Roald Dahl

The little pig began to pray But Wolfie blew his house away. He shouted, "Bacon, Pork, and Ham! Oh what a lucky wolf I am!" And though he ate the pig quite fast, He carefully kept the tail till last. — Roald Dahl

(Television) rots the senses in the head! It kills imagination dead! It clogs and clutters up the mind! It makes a child so dull and blind He can no longer understand A fantasy, a fairyland! His brain becomes as soft as cheese! His powers of thinking rust and freeze! He cannot think -he only sees! — Roald Dahl

I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible. — Roald Dahl

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

lalalalalalallalalallalalalal have nothing to say — Roald Dahl

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it. — Roald Dahl

I am the maker of music, the dreamer of dreams! — 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

And don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music. — Roald Dahl

Oh where, oh where had Snow White gone? She'd found it easy, being pretty To hitch a ride into the city. — Roald Dahl

We all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine. — Roald Dahl

Well not exactly," the father said."Nobody could do that. but it didn't take me long. — Roald Dahl

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

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. — Roald Dahl

Hooray!" said the Chief of the Army. "Let's blow everyone up! Bang-bang! Bang-bang! — Roald Dahl

It is preferable to incur a mild punishment than to perform an onerous task. — Roald Dahl

Life Lessons by Roald Dahl

1. Roald Dahl's stories often focus on the power of imagination and the importance of resilience in the face of adversity. His characters often show that with hard work, determination and a little bit of luck, anything is possible.
2. He also emphasizes the importance of kindness and friendship, and teaches readers to appreciate the small moments in life and to never give up on their dreams.
3. His stories often contain moral lessons, such as the importance of standing up for oneself and being true to oneself, no matter what the odds.