Famous Roald Dahl Quotes and Sayings (Author of Matilda)

If you’re looking for some inspiration, look no further than Roald Dahl. This master storyteller has a way of capturing the imagination and leaving you with a smile on your face. Here are some of our favorite Roald Dahl quotes.

Roald Dahl Quotes

Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Llandaff, Wales. He was a British author, screenwriter, and fighter pilot. Dahl is best known for his children’s books, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and The BFG. Dahl’s works have been translated into dozens of languages and sold more than 200 million copies.

51 Roald Dahl Quotes

  1. “If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.”

2. “Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”

3. “You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.”

4. “There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t even started wondering about yet.”

5. “They is all at least two times my wideness and double my royal highness!”

6. “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.”

7. “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.”

8. “Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn’t be exciting if they didn’t.”

9. “Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.”

10. “There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.”

roald dahl book quotes

Famous Roald Dahl Quotes

11. “We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.”

12. “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”

13. “The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.”

14. “Everything and all of them were being rattled around like peas inside an enormous rattle that was being rattled by a mad giant who refused to stop.”

15. “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

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

17. “Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn’t be exciting if they didn’t.”

18. “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.”

19. “Is it ever occurring to you that a human bean who is fifty is spending about twenty years sleeping fast?”

20. “You can write about anything for children as long as you’ve got humour.”

Roald Dahl Best Quotes

21. “A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones.”

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

23. “However small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance was there.”

24. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.”

25. “No one who is good can ever be ugly.”

26. “It’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself”

27. “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.”

28. “My grandmother was the only grandmother I ever met who smoked cigars.”

29. “Life is more fun if you play games.”

30. “you should be able to make a scene come alive in the reader’s mind. Not everybody has this ability. It is a gift, and you either have it or you don’t.”

Thought-Provoking Roald Dahl Quotes

31. “I’m right and you’re wrong, I’m big and you’re small, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

32. “If you can think of anything more terrifying than that happening to you in the middle of the night, then let’s hear about it.”

33. “If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

34. “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”

35. “If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

36. “There’s more power and magic in those things in there than in all the rest of the world put together”

37. “She resented being told constantly that she was stupid, when she knew she wasn’t.”

38. “Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.”

39. “You chose books, I chose looks . Now see the difference?”

40. “We all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine.”

41. “A little magic can take you a long way.” – (Roald Dahl magic quote)

42. “Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.”

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

44. “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.”

45. “I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, Just as long as he finishes the book.”

46. “You must remember that here in Norway we are used to that sort of thing. There are witches everywhere.”

47. “It is almost worth going away because it’s so lovely coming back.”

48. “Never get out of bed, never go to the window, and never look behind the curtain.”

49. “You are still yourself in everything except your appearance. You’ve still got your own mind and your own brain and your own voice, and thank goodness for that.”

50. “Men were foolish and were made only so that they should die, while mountains and rivers went on for ever and did not notice the passing of time.”

51. “Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.”

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