Roald Dahl Quotes - Page 4

When you're writing a book, it's rather like going on a very long walk, across valleys and mountains and things [...] The highest mountain on the walk is obviously the end of the book, because it's got to be the best view of all, when everything comes together and you can look back and see that everything you've done all ties up. But it's a very, very long, slow process.

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.

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!

You seemed so far away," Miss Honey whispered, awestruck. "Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings," Matilda said. "It was wonderful.

Obscurity is never a virtue.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

Candy is dandy but liqueur is quicker.

... 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.

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

It is most unlikely. But--here comes the big "but"--not impossible.

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

Writing is mainly perspiration, not inspiration.

Come right up close to me and I will show you something wonderful.

Titchy little snapperwhippers like you should not be higgling around with an old sage and onions who is hundreds of years more than you.

What I mean and what I say is two different things," the BFG announced rather grandly.

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

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

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.