Literary Birthday - Roald Dahl

(Reblogged from Amanda on Writing)

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Literary Birthday - 13 September

Happy Birthday, Roald Dahl, born 13 September 1916, died 23 November 1990

13th September is known as Roald Dahl Day

12 Quotes

1. Don’t gobblefunk around with words.
2. I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.
3. I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours, a fixed salary, and very little original thinking to do.
4. Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.
5. The life of a writer is absolute hell … if he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.
6. A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
7. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.
8. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you.
9. If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.
10. If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.
11. 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.
12. Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.

Follow this link to read what Dahl’s illustrator, Quentin Blake, had to say about his famous writing hut.

Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter. He became one of the world’s best-selling authors. His short stories are known for their unexpected endings, and his children’s books for their unsentimental, dark humour. His works include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The Witches,George’s Marvellous Medicine and The BFG.

In 1989, a 7-year-old girl named Amy sent Roald Dahl a beautiful gift: one of her dreams, contained in a bottle. This letter was his response:

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