Roald Dahl (born 13 September 1916, Llandaff, Cardiff, United Kingdom – died 23 November 1990, Oxford, United Kingdom) was a British novelist, writer of short stories, screen writer, and fighter pilot. He is best known for his children's books, which include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. Roald Dahl is considered as "one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century."
Top 15 Roald Dahl Quotes
Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.A little magic can take you a long way.A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.Don't gobblefunk around with words.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.Kindness – that simple word. To be kind – it covers everything, to my mind. If you’re kind that’s it.If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.However small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.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…
If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.
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 it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
Roald Dahl
4 Roald Dahl Quotes on Books
If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.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.No book ever ends, when it's full of your friends.
5 Roald Dahl Quotes on Writing and Reading
I love writing and reading about horrible people. They are much more fun than nice people.A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.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.All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen.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.
2 Roald Dahl Quotes on Children
The more risks you allow your children to make, the better they learn to look after themselves.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.
5 Roald Dahl Quotes on Dreams
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.We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be.Dreams is full of mystery and magic… Do not try to understand them.I’ve heard tell that what you imagine sometimes comes true. -Grandpa Joe.
19 Inspirational Roald Dahl Quotes about Life
A life is made up of a great number of small incidents, and a small number of great ones.We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.
I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.
Roald Dahl
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.
Roald Dahl
Life is more fun if you play games.I understand what you're saying, and your comments are valuable, but I'm gonna ignore your advice.The only sensible thing to do when you are attacked is, as Napoleon once said, to counter-attack.The secret of life… is to become very very good at something that’s very very hard to do.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.It’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself.Don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.I will not pretend I wasn’t petrified. I was. But mixed in with the awful fear was a glorious feeling of excitement. Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn’t be exciting if they didn’t.Great things often start off small.Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It’s made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!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.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.You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.