Perhaps it's chasing me. But I don't think it will ever catch me because I am moving fast.

A little magic can take you a long way.

I regard each sentence as a little wheel... Now and again I try to put a really big one next to a very small one in such a way that the big one, turning slowly, will make the small one spin so fast that it hums. Very tricky, that.

Whipped cream isn't whipped cream at all if it hasn't been whipped with whips, just like poached eggs isn't poached eggs unless it's been stolen in the dead of the night.

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.

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.

Words', he said, 'is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life. So you must simply try to be patient and stop squibbling. As I am telling you before, I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiff-squiddled around.

The cuss am I? Are you cussing with me?

If I were a headmaster, I would get rid of the history teacher and get a chocolate teacher instead and my pupils would study a subject that affected all of them.

There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity; maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason.

I'm right and you're wrong, I'm big and you're small, and there's nothing you can do about it.

All grown-ups appear as giants to small children. But Headmasters (and policemen) are the biggest giants of all and acquire a marvellously exaggerated stature.

Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.

If my books can help children become readers, then I feel I have accomplished something important.

The maid screamed. The Queen gasped. Sophie waved.

The walls were wet and sticky, and peach juice was dripping from the ceiling. James opened his mouth and caught some of it on his tongue. It tasted delicious.

The reason I collect good ideas is because plots themselves are very difficult indeed to come by.

Fairy tales have always got to have something a bit scary for children -- as long as you make them laugh as well.

Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous.

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.