We love a genius writer with an amazing worldview. Happy Roald Dahl Day! To celebrate, enjoy some of our favorite quotes from our favorite books. Or better yet, grab one of his books and "go the whole hog."
Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog.
The books transported her to 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.
"A fine writer will always make you feel that," Mrs Phelps said. "And don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”
“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.”
“What I mean and what I say is two different things," the BFG announced rather grandly.
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.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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.
Danny the Champion of the World
It's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself.
The Minpins (This is Dahl's last novel for children and this is the very last line.)
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.
