Roald Dahl

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.

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

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

If you are good, life is good.

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.

Books are the best of things if well used; if abused, among the worst. They are good for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

Just the omission of Jane Austen’s books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.

Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which even make us dangerous to existing institution – such call I good books.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

Classic – A book which people praise and don’t read.

Whatever our fate is or may be, we have made it and do not complain of it. – Vronksy (Anna Karenina)

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.

As a child I used to read Gone with the Wind over and over again. I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. I never wanted to believe that it was possible that there could be infidelity. I never wanted to be believe that it was even possible for a man to look another way, even for a moment. My bubble of monogamy was pierced in a harsh way.

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.