Matilda by Roald Dahl is a 1988 children's novel set in a small English village. The narrative focuses on one little girl and her extraordinary life. Matilda Wormwood is a precocious child and is also highly intelligent. However, she is often misunderstood and mistreated by her neglectful parents. At school, Matilda has to face the tyrannical Miss Trunchbull. The girl loathes the way this headmistress rules the student body with fear and cruelty. However, Matilda is lucky enough to have a kind teacher, Miss Honey. This teacher provides solace by recognizing and fostering Matilda’s talents. 

This classic novel champions the power of individuality, intelligence, and justice, resonating deeply with readers who may feel out of place or undervalued in society as it encourages young readers to stand up against unfair treatment. Below are 30+ Matilda quotes amplifying the novel's message that kindness and courage can triumph over adversity.

Quotes on the power of reading and imagination

In a world that seeks to suppress her, Matilda finds her greatest strength and solace in books. These quotes explore how reading is not merely a hobby, but a form of escape, a source of knowledge, and a crucial tool for a young girl's intellectual and emotional survival.

• “The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.”

• “So Matilda's strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone."

• "All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen."

• "And don't worry about the bits you can't understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music."

• "You seemed so far away,” Miss Honey whispered, awestruck. “Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings,” Matilda said. “It was wonderful.”

• "It was truly a strange sight to watch that little person sitting, whose feet didn't reach the ground, completely absorbed in the wonderful adventures of Pip and the old Miss Havisham with her house full of cobwebs, lost in the enchantment that Dickens the great storyteller had woven with his words."

• "Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again. Do any of us children, she wondered, ever stop to ask ourselves where our teachers go when school is over for the day?"

• “There was a moment of silence, and Matilda, who had never before heard great romantic poetry spoken aloud, was profoundly moved. 'It's like music,' she whispered.”

• "'A precocious child,' Miss Honey said, 'is one that shows amazing intelligence early on. You are an unbelievably precocious child.'"

Quotes on the dynamic between children and adults

The core tension of the novel is the battle between Matilda's brilliant mind and the willful ignorance of the adults in her life. These quotes capture the petty jealousies, absurd priorities, and outright hostility that Matilda faces from her family and headmistress, who see her intelligence not as a gift, but as a threat to their own small-minded worldview.

• "With frightening suddenness he now began ripping the pages out of the book in handfuls and throwing them in the waste-paper basket.... There seemed little doubt that the man felt some kind of jealousy. How dare she... enjoy reading books when he couldn't? How dare she?"

• "'A book?! What’d you wanna flaming book for?... We've got a lovely telly with a 12-inch screen, and now ya wanna book!'"

• "A girl should think about making herself look attractive so she can get a good husband later on. Looks is more important than books, Miss Honey..."

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

• "'I cannot for the life of me understand why small children take so long to grow up. I think they do it deliberately, just to annoy me.'"

• "It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful."

• "In any event, parents never underestimated the abilities of their own children. Quite the reverse."

• "One could almost hear him saying, 'It's me! Here I come, the great man himself, the master of the house, the wage-earner, the one who makes it possible for the rest of you to live so well! Notice me and pay your respects!"

Quotes on rebellion and perseverance

In a world where she is told she is powerless, Matilda refuses to be a victim. These quotes illustrate her transformation from a misunderstood child into a fierce and creative champion for the wronged.

• "Matilda said, 'Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...'"

• "She decided that every time her father or her mother was beastly to her, she would get her own back in some way or another. A small victory or two would help her to tolerate their idiocies and would stop her from going crazy."

• "We may be small but we’re quite tough."

• "The only sensible thing to do when you are attacked is, as Napoleon once said, to counter-attack."

• "All of a sudden she found that she was frightened by nobody in the world."

• "She felt fairly confident that with a great deal of practice and effort, she would succeed in the end."

• "Being very small and very young, the only power Matilda had over anyone in her family was brain-power."

• "Any courage I had was knocked out of me when I was young. But now, all of a sudden I have a sort of desperate wish to tell everything to somebody."

• "A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

• "There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards."

• "Both Matilda and Lavender were enthralled. It was quite clear to them that they were at this moment standing in the presence of a master. Here was somebody who had brought the art of skulduggery to the highest point of perfection, somebody, moreover, who was willing to risk life and limb in pursuit of her calling."