Danny the Champion of the World Quotes

“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.”

“Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.”

“Most of the really exciting things we do in our lives scare us to death. They wouldn’t be exciting if they didn’t.”

“It takes guts to do that, I thought. Terrific guts.”

“This was the moment of danger, the biggest thrill of all.”

“You will learn as you get older, just as I learned that autumn, that no father is perfect.”

“Mind you, in those days just about every man in our village was out in the woods at night poaching pheasants. And they did it not only because they loved the sport but because they needed food for their families.”

“What I have been trying so hard to tell you all along is simply that my father, without the slightest doubt, was the most marvelous and exciting father any boy ever had.”

“Some have quirkier quirks and deeper secrets than others, but all of them, including one’s own parents, have two or three private habits hidden up their sleeves that would probably make you gasp if you knew about them.”

“I think that all the love he had felt for my mother when she was alive he now lavished upon me. During my early years, I never had a moment’s unhappiness or illness and here I am on my fifth birthday.”