76+ Roald Dahl Quotes with Pictures

In his life, Roald Dahl has created some of literature’s most unforgettable characters. His stories have reached generations of kids. Inspiring the young and the old with his heartfelt messages and loveable characters that any child could relate to. Beneath every story he offered a beautiful and yet inspirational piece of knowledge to all his readers. To mark Roald Dahl’s 100th Birthday this week, I have collected 10 of Roald Dahl’s greatest quotes from his much-loved books.

Roald Dahl Quotes About Life

1. “Never grow up…always down.” – George’s Marvellous Medicine

2. “There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.” – James and the Giant Peach

3. “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, Matilda

4. “Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.” ― Roald Dahl

5. ‘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.’ – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

6. ‘I understand what you’re saying, and your comments are valuable, but I’m gonna ignore your advice.’ – Fantastic Mr Fox

7. ‘You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that.’ – Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

8. “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.” – My Uncle Oswald

9. “If you are good, life is good.” ― Roald Dahl, Matilda

10. “Nothing is any fun if you can get as much of it as you want. Especially money.” – The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

11. “Life is more fun if you play games.” – My Uncle Oswald

12. “A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.” – Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

13. “Two rights don’t equal a left.” – The BFG

14. “It’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself.” – Danny the Champion of the World

15. “My candle burns at both ends it will not last the night but arh my friends and oh my foes it gives a lovely light.” – Boy: Tales of Childhood

16.  “A life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones.” – Going Solo

17. “We all have our moments of brilliance and glory.” – Boy

18. “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

19. “The secret of life,” he said, “is to become very very good at somethin’ that’s very very ‘ard to do.” – The Hitch Hiker

Inspirational Roald Dahl Quotes

20. “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.” ― Roald Dahl

21. ‘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.’ – Danny the Champion of the World

22. ‘Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.’ – Matilda

23. “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.” – James and the Giant Peach

24. “Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.” – Roald Dahl

25. “You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

26. “Because we are all a great deal luckier than we realize, we usually get what we want—or near enough.” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

27. “I’ve heard tell that what you imagine sometimes comes true.” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

28. “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.” – The BFG

Quotes About Reading

29. “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.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books.”
― Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

30. “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

31. “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.”  – Matilda

32. “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, Matilda

33. “All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television.” – Matilda

34. “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

35. “There are no strangers in here, just friends you haven’t met…” – Roald Dahl

36. “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

37. “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.

38. “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

39. “If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.” – Roald Dahl

Quotes About Learning

40. “Don’t gobblefunk around with words.” ― Roald Dahl, The BFG

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

42. “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.” – Boy

43. “The human brain is an amazing thing.” – Matilda

44. “I don’t want a grown-up person at all. A grownup won’t listen to me; he won’t learn. He will try to do things his own way and not mine. So I have to have a child. I want a good sensible loving child, one to whom I can tell all my most precious candy-making secrets-while I am still alive.” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

45. “There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards.”
– Matilda

46. “Don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.” – Matilda

47. “I’ve always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn’t I?” –  Matilda

Quotes On Magic

48. “A little magic can take you a long way.” – James and the Giant Peach

49. “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.”
– Billy and The Minpins

50. “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.” – The BFG

51. ‘The matter with human beans,’ the BFG went on, ‘is that they is absolutely refusing to believe anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles.’” – The BFG

52. “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – The Min Pins

Quotes On Beauty

53. “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, The Twits

54. “I think I have this thing where everybody has to think I’m the greatest. And if they aren’t completely knocked out and dazzled and slightly intimidated by me, I don’t feel good about myself.” ― Fantastic Mr. Fox

Roald Dahl Love Quotes

55. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.” ― Roald Dahl, The Witches

56. “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.” – Matilda

57. “Let your love out.” – The BFG

58. ‘He thought for the thousandth time how pretty she was, how sweet and gentle and full of kindness, and his heart ached with love.” –  Esio Trot

Kindness Quotes

59. “Kindness – that simple word. To be kind – it covers everything, to my mind. If you’re kind that’s it.” – Roald Dahl

See this list of writing prompts about kindness for more inspiration. =

Other Famous Roald Dahl Quotes

60. “Mr. Wonka: “Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted.”
Charlie Bucket: “What happened?”
Mr. Wonka: “He lived happily ever after.” ― Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

61. “If I were a headmaster I would get rid of the history teacher and get a chocolate teacher instead.” – Roald Dahl

62. “If I had my way, I would remove January from the calender altogether and have an extra July instead.” – Roald Dahl

63. “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

64. ‘We must hurry!’ said Mr. Wonka. ‘We have so much time and so little to do! No! Wait! Strike that! Reverse it!’ ― Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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

66. “Children are not so serious as grown-ups and they love to laugh.” – Matilda

67. “Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous anymore.” – Boy: Tales of Childhood

68. “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.” – Matilda

69. “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.” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

70. “Everything in this room is edible. Even I’m edible. But, that would be called cannibalism. It is looked down upon in most societies.” – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

71. “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!” – Roald Dahl

72. “It is most unlikely. But–here comes the big “but”–not impossible.” – The Witches

73. “It is almost worth going away because it’s so lovely coming back.” – Boy: Tales of Childhood

74. “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.” – Matilda

75. “Mice, I felt pretty certain, all like each other. People don’t.” – The Witches

76.  “When writing about oneself, one must strive to be truthful. Truth is more important than modesty.” – Boy: Tales of Childhood

77. “Mr. Twit was a twit. He was born a twit. And, now at the age of sixty, he was a bigger twit than ever.” – The Twits

78. “Tremendous things are in store for you! Wonderful surprises await you.” – Charlie and The Chocolate Factory

Got a favourite Roald Dahl quote? Tell us by commenting below.

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