Roald Dahl

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.

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

I’ve also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It’s sure to be a phony.

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

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

Human ‘beans’ is the only animals that is killing their own kind.

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?

Sir, I have no objection to a man’s drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

Cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt.

What we become depends on what our fathers teach us.

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Avoid popularity it has many snares and no real benefit.

No one ever became great by imitation.

Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

Burning logs can carry on quite a conversation! … Have you ever heard apple wood talking? It’s the most loquacious of all. You really can’t get a word in edgeways.