Quotes from Danny the Champion of the World

“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, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“I will not pretend I wasn't petrified. I was. But mixed in with the awful fear was a glorious feeling of excitement. Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn't be exciting if they didn't.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“A message To the children who have read this book. When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important. A stodgy parent is no fun at all! What a child wants -and DESERVES- is a parent who is SPARKY!" - Danny, the champion of the world.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“A stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is SPARKY”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“On this Thursday, on this particular walk to school, there was an old frog croaking in the stream behind the hedge as we went by.
'Can you hear him, Danny?'
'Yes,' I said,
'That is a bullfrog calling to his wife. He does it by blowing out his dewlap and letting it go with a burp.'
'What is a dewlap?' I asked.
'It's the loose skin on his throat. He can blow it up just like a balloon.'
'What happens when his wife hears him?'
'She goes hopping over to him. She is very happy to have been invited. But I'll tell you something very funny about the old bullfrog. He often becomes so pleased with the sound of his own voice that his wife has to nudge him several times before he'll stop his burping and turn round to hug her.'
That made me laugh.
'Dont laugh too loud,' he said, twinkling at me with his eyes. 'We men are not so very different from the bullfrog.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“I didn’t know which direction I was going in. I just went on walking and calling out, walking and calling; and each time I called, I would stop and listen. But no answer came.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“as much as the next man,”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“Of course he enticed them!” “Well now,” said the sergeant, propping his bicycle carefully against one of our pumps. “This is a very hinterestin’ haccusation, very hinterestin’ indeed, because I hain’t never ’eard of nobody hen-ticin’ a pheasant across six miles of fields and open countryside. ’Ow do you think this hen-ticin’ was performed, Mr. ’Azell, if I may hask?” “Don’t ask me how he did it because I don’t know!” shouted Mr. Hazell. “But he’s done it all right! The proof is all around you! All my finest birds are sitting here in this dirty little filling station when they ought to be up in my own wood getting ready for the shoot!” The words poured out of Mr. Hazell’s mouth like hot lava from an erupting volcano. “Am I correct,” said Sergeant Samways, “am I habsolutely haccurate in thinkin’ that today is the day of your great shootin’ party, Mr. ’Azell?”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“The rooster has a funny little paper hat over its head, like an ice-cream cone upside down, and my dad is pointing to it proudly and saying, ‘Stroke him. Go on, stroke him. Do anything you like to him. He won’t move an inch.’ The rooster starts scratching”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

“WILLY WONKA’S FAMOUS CHOCOLATE FACTORY IS OPENING AT LAST!”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Danny the Champion of the World

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Popular quotes

“And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
― quote from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version

“At the moment, my biggest plan for the future consists of a take-out pizza and re-watching the first six seasons of Sons of Anarchy. I’m nurturing a monogamous, not-at-all disturbing relationship with Charlie Hunnam's work right now.”
― L.J. Shen, quote from Tyed

“The return journey was nothing like the arrival. Bea couldn’t wait to get out of the car. She remembered feeling like this before, with Brandon, on several occasions. It was an excruciating need to escape the confinement of being in too close a proximity to passive-aggressive behaviour. She hated conflict, after a row, it would take her hours, perhaps days to become fully relaxed and herself again. She became anxious, not entirely brought on by his coldness, but by old memories, and the way her body would instinctively react to them. It wasn’t a feeling that she wanted to experience with someone new, of whom she’d told his sister only a short time ago that she was falling in love with.”
― Tracey-anne McCartney, quote from A Carpet of Purple Flowers

“So the next time you doubt the strangeness of the future, remember how you were born in a hunter-gatherer tribe ten thousand years ago, when no one knew of Science at all. Remember how you were shocked, to the depths of your being, when Science explained the great and terrible sacred mysteries that you once revered so highly. Remember how you once believed that you could fly by eating the right mushrooms, and then you accepted with disappointment that you would never fly, and then you flew. Remember how you had always thought that slavery was right and proper, and then you changed your mind. Don't imagine how you could have predicted the change, for that is amnesia. Remember that, in fact, you did not guess. Remember how, century after century, the world changed in ways you did not guess.

Maybe then you will be less shocked by what happens next.”
― Eliezer Yudkowsky, quote from Rationality: From AI to Zombies

“For the Word of God is not received by faith if it flits about in the top of the brain, but when it takes root in the depth of the heart . . . the heart's distrust is greater than the mind's blindness. It is harder for the heart to be furnished with assurance [of God's love] than for the mind to be endowed with thought.”
― John Calvin, quote from Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Vols

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.