A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.
A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.
All Norwegian children learn to swim when they are very young because if you can't swim it is difficult to find a place to bathe.
All through my school life I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed quite literally to wound other boys, and sometimes very severely.
An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.
Did they preach one thing and practice another, these men of God?
Egypt was desert country. It was bare and sandy and full of tombs and relics and Egyptians, and I didn't fancy it at all.
Everyone has some sort of a boat in Norway. NObody sits around in front of the hotel. Nor does anyone sit on the beach.
Game-playing at school is always fun if you happen to be good at it, and it is hell if you are not. I was one of the lucky ones.
Homesickness is a bit like seasickness. You don't know how awful it is unti you get it, and when you do, it hits you right in the top of the stomach and you want to die.
I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible.
I began to realise that the large chocolate companies actually did possess inventing rooms, and they took their inventing very seriously.
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.
I devised a stunt for getting myself sent back home. My idea was that I should all of a sudden develop an attack of acute appendicitis.
I do have a blurred memory of sitting on the stairs and trying over and over again to tie one of my shoelaces, but that is all that comes back to me of school itself.
I shot down some German planes and I got shot down myself, crashing in a burst of flames and crawling out, getting rescued by brave soldiers.
I was a fighter pilot, flying Hurricanes all round the Mediterranean. I flew in the Western Desert of Libya, in Greece, in Syria, in Iraq and in Egypt.
In 1920, with no penicillin or other magical antibiotic cures, pneumonia in particular was a very dangerous illness indeed.
My father was a Norwegian who came from a small town near Oslo. He broke his arm at the elbow when he was 14, and they amputated it.
Nobody gets a nervous breakdown or a heart attack from selling kerosene to gentle country folk from the back of a tanker in Somerset.
Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.
On the way to school and on the way back we always passed the sweet-shop. We always stopped. We lingered outside its small window gazing in at the big glass jars.
Pain was something we were expected to endure. But I doubt very much if you would be entirely happy today if a doctor threw a towel in your face and jumped on you with a knife.
Pear Drops were exciting because they had a dangerous taste. All of us were warned against eating them, and the result was that we ate them more than ever.
Prayers were held in Assembly Hall. We all perched in rows on wooden benches while teachers sat up on the platform in armchairs, facing us.
The Bristol Channel was always my guide, and I was always able to draw an imaginary line from my bed to our house over in Wales. It was a great comfort.
The rules of Prep were simple but strict. You were forbidden to look up from your work, and you were forbidden to talk.
The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.
The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it.
There is nothing wrong with a few quick sharp tickles on the rump. They probably do a naughty boy a lot of good.
Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.
Throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten.
To shipbrokers, coal was black gold.
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.
Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home.
When I walked to school in the mornings I would start out alone but would pick up four other boys along the way. We would set out together after school across the village green.
When I was 2, we moved into an imposing country mansion 8 miles west of Cardiff, Wales.
In 1965, Patricia Neal suffered three burst cerebral aneurisms while pregnant with their fifth child, Lucy. Roald took control of her rehabilitation and she eventually relearned to talk and walk. They were divorced in 1983 following a very turbulent marriage, and he subsequently married Felicity ("Liccy") Crosland, to whom he was married until his death.
The concept of the Golden Ticket has been parodied by a number of film and television shows, often as part of a plot that involves parodying Charlie and the Chocolate Factory itself. For example, in The Simpsons episode "Simple Simpson", Homer tries to win a tour of a bacon factory by uncovering a Golden Ticket in packs of bacon. In "Fry and the Slurm Factory", an episode of Futurama, Fry chokes on a Golden Bottlecap, which wins his friend a tour of the Slurm Factory. Also, in the Family Guy episode "Wasted Talent", Peter tries to win a tour of Pawtucket Pat's brewery by finding one of four Silver Scrolls hidden in bottles of beer.
He ended the war as a Wing Commander
He saw his first combat over the city of Chalcis and on April 15th shooing down a Junkers Ju-88 With his lone Hurricane against the six bombers that were attacking ships, On 16th April he claimed a Probable On April 20th Dahl took part in the Battle of Athens along with Squadron Leader 'Pat' Pattle and his friend David Coke shooting down another Ju-88. As the Germans were pressing Athens Dahl was evacuated back to Egypt 80 Squadron was reassembled in Haifa, Palestine. From here, Dahl flew missions every day for a period of four weeks, Dowanother JU-88 on 15th June,but then he began ning a Potez 63 on 8th june and to get blinding headaches that gave him black-outs in the air, and he was invalided home to Britain he was by this time a Flight Lieutenant .
When his plane crashed, Dahl was rescued and taken to a first-aid post in Mersah Matruh, where he regained consciousness, but not his sight, and was then taken by train to the Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. There he fell in love with a nurse, Mary Welland, who was the first person he saw when he regained his sight after eight weeks. The doctors said he had no chance of flying again, but in February 1941, five months after he was admitted to the hospital, he was discharged and passed fully fit for flying duties.
In August 1939, as World War II was imminent, plans were made to round up the hundreds of Germans in Dar-es-Salaam. The fifteen or so British citizens in Dar-es-Salaam, including Dahl, were made officers each commanding a platoon of askaris of the King's African Rifles. Dahl was uneasy about this and having to round up hundreds of German civilians, but managed to complete his orders. It was soon after this incident, in November 1939, that he joined the Royal Air Force. After a 600-mile car journey from Dar-es-Salaam to Nairobi, he was accepted for flight training with 16 other men, 14 of whom would later die in air combat. With 7 hours and 40 minutes experience in his De Havilland Tiger Moth he flew solo, and hugely enjoyed watching the wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued on to advanced flying training at RAF Habbaniya (50 miles west of Baghdad) in Iraq. Following six months of flying Hawker Harts he was made a Pilot Officer and assigned to No. 80 Squadron RAF, flying obsolete Gloster Gladiators. Dahl was surprised to find that he would not be trained in aerial combat, or even how to fly the Gladiator.
Though his mother expected him to attend university after leaving school, Dahl instead found a job with Shell Petroleum, which sent him to other parts of the world....
At Repton School in Derbyshire (where he was the personal servant of the prefect in whose study he had his little desk for the greater part of his early years), he was captain of the school Fives and Squash team, and also played for the football team. He developed an interest in photography. During his years there, Cadbury, a chocolate company, would occasionally send boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the pupils. Dahl himself apparently used to dream of inventing a new chocolate bar that would win the praise of Mr. Cadbury himself, and this proved the inspiration for him to write his third book for children, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In 1920, when Roald was four, his seven-year-old sister, Astri, died from appendicitis, then about a month later his father died of pneumonia at the age of 57. His mother, however, rather than move back to Norway to live with her relatives, decided to stay in the UK - it had been her husband's wish to have their children educated in British schools, as he thought they were the best in the world.
As well as being Britain's number one favourite writer, Roald Dahl was Chairman of Readathon, the national sponsored read, from 1988 until his death in 1990. Brough Girling, director of Readathon, tells us about his old friend.
Roald never liked sitting still! He didn't like the cinema, theatre, or concert halls, mainly because the seats and leg room were too small
Roald never liked Christmas. He preferred Easter - perhaps it was all that chocolate!
Something Roald didn't like was people with colds.
Roald Dahl had lots of hobbies - apart from writing! He loved food and wine, and collected French wine, as well as drinking it. He liked gardening, and he specialised in growing enormous onions. He was crazy about sport, in fact it was about the only thing he watched on TV. He especially loved snooker, horse racing, rugby and football. He also loved to listen to classical music, but at home
Roald had about eight big operations and lots of little ones, mainly on his back. Roald had bits of bone scraped off one of his vertabrae, which Roald kept in a small bottle on his desk.
Roald Dahl and his wife Felicity, were actually brought up in neighbouring streets in Cardiff. They discovered this much later!
A few months before his own death, his stepdaughter, Larina, died of a brain tumer.
In 1965, Roald's first wife, Patrica "Pan" Neal, sufferded 3 strokes in rapid succsession.
In 1960, Roald and his family settled in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, England at Gipsy House.
Roald's book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, has been made into a new ride in 2006, in the UK's # 1 theme park, Alton Towers.
For the first 15 weeks of his writing career, Dahl concentrated on writing for adults.
At 18, rather than going to university, Roald joined the Puplic Schools Exploring Society's expedition to Newfoundland.
In England, Roald has his own museum, The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Center.
Roald has been named The Most Successful Children's Author in the World, or The Most Scumdiddlyumptious Story Teller in the World.
As a young boy, Roald loved stories and books.
Roald's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has been made into a movie twice. Once in 1971 and again in 2005.
Roald's Special Virtue is that he was never satisfied with what he has done.
Roald's favorite color is Yellow.
Roald's Favorite Music was Beethoven.
Roald's favorite sound was the Piano.
Roald's favorite smell is Bacon frying.
If Roald were not to be an author, Roald would be a doctor.
Roald's kid books are as followed: BFG, Boy, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Danny the Champion of the World, Dirty Beasts, The Enormous Crocodile, Esio Trot, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Great Automatic Grammatizor, George's Marvelous Medicine, James and the Giant Peach, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Magic Finger, Matilda, The Minpins, The Mildenhall Treasure, My Year, Quiz Books, The Vicar of Nibbleswicke, Even More Revolting Recipes, Revolting Rhymes, Rhyme Stew, Collections & Special Editions, Skin and Other Stories, The Witches, The Twits, The Umbrella Man, and Revolting Recipes.
Roald Dahl: (motto) My candle burns at both ends, It will not last the night, But ah, my foes and friends, It gives a lovely light.
Roald Dahl: A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.
Roald used to fly Hawker Hurricanes in 80 Squadron in World War II.
Roald replaced Richard Maibaum as screenwriter for You Only Live Twice (1967) at the last minute. Maibaum returned to the chair in 1969.
Roald's daughter, Olivia Dahl, died of the measles at age 7.
Roald nearly lost his nose in a car accident.
Roald wrote his novels in his garden shed.
In one of Roald's short stories, Beware of the Dog, a fighter pilot is shot down during wartime and loses one of his legs. He recovers in a hospital only to discover that he is in Nazi-occupied France. Although the story is based on Roald's World War II experiences, it is not entirely autobiographical; Roald did crash his plane, but did not lose a leg or become a prisoner of war.
The Helga (Luke's grandmother) character in The Witches was based on Roald's own Norwegian grandmother, who Roald said was a tough and fearless woman.
The book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was dedicated to his son, Theo Dahl, who almost died by being run over a car.
Roald's parents were Norwegian.
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