#dahl

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. 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. ↗

— Roald Dahl

#dahl #danny-the-champion-of-the-world #fiction #father

We’ve met before you know?” I look at him a little perplexed and a little hurt that he hasn’t mentioned it. I nod my head indicating that, of course, I remember. Then with a low raspy voice I answer, “You remember meeting me and haven’t said anything up until now. Why?” With an equally low voice and the harshness seemingly gone in his tone, he says, “Why haven’t you, Dahlia?” He’s looking at me with his powerful green eyes and I know there’s no seeing the future in them right now. ↗

— Kim Karr

#equality

I saw this cartoon in the paper, once. That Viking, Hagar the Horrible? He’s standing on the mountaintop, holding his hands to the heavens, shouting “Why me?” And down from the heavens comes the answer: “Why not?” Maybe that’s the ultimate truth; what right to do I have to expect a smooth ride? ↗

— Jonathan Kellerman

#helena-dahl #life #truth #life

A whizzpopper!" cried the BFG, beaming at her. "Us giants is making whizzpoppers all the time! Whizzpopping is a sign of happiness. It is music in our ears! You surely is not telling me that a little whizzpopping if forbidden among human beans? ↗

— Roald Dahl

#children-s #farting #friendly #gas #giant

Dahlia shook her head. “While I don't want to experience that again, I learned a lot about myself today and about you. And Nick, even. I didn't know it was possible for me to feel closer to you. I should send that fucking bitch a fruit basket. ↗

— Arden Aoide

#dahlia #lurve #experience

His hold is tight, our fingers are laced, and he’s occasionally rubbing circles on the top of my hand with his thumb. These small gestures definitely make handholding seem more like an art. ↗

— Kim Karr

#river-wilde #art

The Framers were no more interested in binding future Americans to a set of divinely inspired commandments than any of us would wish to be bound by them. ↗

— Dahlia Lithwick

#jurisprudence #slate #inspirational

With frightening suddenness he now began ripping the pages out of the book in handfuls and throwing them in the waste-paper basket. Matilda froze in horror. The father kept going. There seemed little doubt that the man felt some kind of jealousy. How dare she, he seemed to be saying with each rip of a page, how dare she enjoy reading books when he couldn't? How dare she? ↗

— Roald Dahl

#intelligent #matilda #roald-dahl #shocking #inspirational

My darling," she said at last, are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?" "I don't mind at all" I said. It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you. ↗

— Roald Dahl

#witches #life

We may see a Creature with forty-nine heads Who lives in the desolate snow, And whenever he catches a cold (which he dreads) He has forty-nine noses to blow. 'We may see the venomous Pink-Spotted Scrunch Who can chew up a man with one bite. It likes to eat five of them roasted for lunch And eighteen for its supper at night. 'We may see a Dragon, and nobody knows That we won't see a Unicorn there. We may see a terrible Monster with toes Growing out of the tufts of his hair. 'We may see the sweet little Biddy-Bright Hen So playful, so kind and well-bred; And such beautiful eggs! You just boil them and then They explode and they blow off your head. 'A Gnu and a Gnocerous surely you'll see And that gnormous and gnorrible Gnat Whose sting when it stings you goes in at the knee And comes out through the top of your hat. 'We may even get lost and be frozen by frost. We may die in an earthquake or tremor. Or nastier still, we may even be tossed On the horns of a furious Dilemma. 'But who cares! Let us go from this horrible hill! Let us roll! Let us bowl! Let us plunge! Let's go rolling and bowling and spinning until We're away from old Spiker and Sponge! ↗

— Roald Dahl

#imagination #james-and-the-giant-peach #monsters #roald-dahl #beauty