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

— Roald Dahl

...the more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves. If you never let them take any risks, then I believe they become very prone to injury. Boys should be allowed to climb tall trees and walk along the tops of high walls and dive into the sea from high rocks... The same with girls. I like the type of child who takes risks. Better by far than the one who never does so.

— Roald Dahl

There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bowler. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose." Where?" In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.

— Roald Dahl

There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.

— Roald Dahl

There's plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket, there's only five of them in the whole world, and that's all there's ever going to be. Only a dummy would give this up for something as common money. Are you a dummy?

— Roald Dahl

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whiskey than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. 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.

— Roald Dahl

This allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cozy corner, devouring one book after another. When she had read every single children's book in the place, she started wandering round in search of something else.

— Roald Dahl

Truth is more important than modesty

— Roald Dahl

Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home.

— Roald Dahl

We are all a great deal luckier that we realize, we usually get what we want - or near enough.

— Roald Dahl