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So Matildas 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.
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The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
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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...
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I'm right and you're wrong, I'm big and you're small, and there's nothing you can do about it.
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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.
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All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen.
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I'm wondering what to read next." Matilda said. "I've finished all the children's books.
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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.
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If you are good life is good.
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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.
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Fiona has the same glacial beauty of an iceburg, but unlike the iceburg she has absolutely nothing below the surface.
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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!
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Sometimes Matilda longed for a friend, someone like the kind, courageous people in her books.
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From then on, Matilda would visit the library only once a week in order to take out new books and return the old ones. Her own small bedroom now became her reading-room and there she would sit and read most afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her. She was not quite tall enough to reach things around in the kitchen, but she kept a small box in the outhouse which she brought in and stood on in order to get whatever she wanted. Mostly it was hot chocolate she made, warming the milk in a saucepan on the stove before mixing it. Occasionally she made Bovril or Ovaltine. It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She traveled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
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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 its unbelievable.
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All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television.
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I have found it impossible to talk to anyone about my problems. I couldn't face the embarrassment, and anyway I lack the courage. Any courage I had was knocked out of me when I was young. But now, all of sudden I have a sort of desperate wish to tell everything to somebody.
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You ignorant little slug!" the Trunchbull bellowed. "You witless weed! You empty-headed hamster! You stupid glob of glue!
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I'm afraid men are not always quite as clever as they think they are. You will learn that when you get a bit older, my girl.
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There arent many funny bits in Mr Tolkien either, Matilda said.Do you think that all childrens books ought to have funny bits in them? Miss Honey asked.I do, Matilda said. Children are not so serious as grown-ups and love to laugh.
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There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards.
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Did you know", Matilda said suddenly, "that the heart of a mouse beats at the rate of six hundred and fifty times a second?"I did not," Miss Honey said smiling. "How absolutely fascinating. Where did you read that?"In a book from the library," Matilda said. "And that means it goes so fast that you can't even hear the separate beats. It must sound like a buzz."It must," Miss Honey said.
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What she needed was just one person, one wise and sympathetic grown-up who could help her.
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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 Hunky...""The name is Honey," Miss Honey said."Now look at me," Mrs Wormwood said. "Then look at you. You chose books. I chose looks.
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I've always said to myself that if a little pocket calculator can do it why shouldn't I?
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In any event, parents never underestimated the abilities of their own children. Quite the reverse. Sometimes it was well nigh impossible for a teacher to convince the proud father or mother that their beloved offspring was a complete nitwit.
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There's nothin' you can get from a book that you can't get from a television fastah!" -Harry Wormwood
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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. They gazed in wonder at this goddess, and suddenly even the boil on her nose was no longer a blemish but a badge of courage.
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These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.
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You mean you live down here?' Matilda asked.'I do', Miss Honey replied, but she said no more.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.
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The only sensible thing to do when you are attacked is, as Napoleon once said, to counter-attack.
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Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous...
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Matilda longed for her parents to be good and loving and understanding and honourable and intelligent. The fact that they were none of these things was something she had to put up with. It was not easy to do so. But the new game she had invented of punishing one or both of them each time they were beastly to her made her life more or less bearable. Being very small and very young, the only power Matilda had over anyone in her family was brain-power. For sheer cleverness she could run rings around them all. But the fact remained that any five-year-old girl in any family was always obliged to do as she was told, however asinine the orders might be.
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Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy its unbelievable.
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With frightening suddenness he now began ripping the pages out of the book in handfuls and throwing them in the waste-paper basket. Matilda froze in horror. The father kept going. There seemed little doubt that the man felt some kind of jealousy. How dare she, he seemed to be saying with each rip of a page, how dare she enjoy reading books when he couldn't? How dare she?
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Mr Hemingway says a lot of things I dont understand, Matilda said to her. 'Especially about men and women. But I loved it all the same. The way he tells it I feel I am right there on the spot watching it all happen.' 'A fine writer will always make you feel that,' Mrs Phelps said . 'And dont worry about the bits you cant understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.
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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.
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Perhaps his anger was intensified because he saw her getting pleasure from something that was beyond his reach.
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It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.
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I libri le aprivano mondi nuovi e le facevano conoscere persone straordinarie che vivevano una vita piena di avventure. Viaggiava su antichi velieri con Joseph Conrad. Andava in Africa con Ernest Hemingway e in India con Kipling. Girava il mondo restando seduta nella sua stanza, in un villaggio inglese.
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Well not exactly," the father said."Nobody could do that. but it didn't take me long...
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We've got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You're getting spoiled, my girl!
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She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
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This allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cozy corner, devouring one book after another. When she had read every single children's book in the place, she started wandering round in search of something else.
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What on earth were you trying to do, make yourself look handsome or something? You look like someone's grandmother gone wrong!
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Being very small and very young, the only power Matilda had over anyone in her family was brain-power.
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If it's by an American it's certain to be filth. That's all they write about.
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I'm afraid men are not always quite as clever as they think they are.
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We don't hold with book-reading," Mr. Wormwood said. "You can't make a living from sitting on your fanny and reading story-books.
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Shakespeare, daddy. Was he brainy? Very, daddy. He had masses of hair, did he? He was bald, daddy. To which the father had snapped, If you cant talk sense then shut up.
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What a nice child she is, Miss Honey thought. I dont care what her father said about her, she seems very quiet and gentle to me. And not a bit stuck up in spite of her brilliance.
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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.
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A rowdy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter.
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All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television. Another thing. She resented being told constantly that she was ignorant and stupid when she knew she wasnt. The anger inside her went on boiling and boiling,
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It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
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The next day she carried her secret weapon to school in her satchel. She was tingling with excitement. She was longing to tell matilda about her plan of battle. In fact, she wanted to tell the whole class. But she finally decided to tell nobody. It was better that way, because then no one, even when put under the most severe torture, would be able to name her as a culprit.
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