I was observing her closely as I talked, and after a while I began to get the impression that she was not, in fact, quite so merry and smiling a girl as I had been led to believe at first. She seemed to be coiled in herself, as though with a secret she was jealously guarding. The deep-blue eyes moved too quickly about the room, never settling or resting on one thing for more than a moment; and over all her face, though so faint that they might not even have been there, those small downward lines of sorrow.

The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves.

...there are no secrets unless you keep them to yourself, and this was the greatest secret I had ever had to keep in my life so far.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm wondering what to read next." Matilda said. "I've finished all the children's books.

Sex is like nose picking. It's fine as long as you practice it yourself, but it's disgusting watching someone else doing it.

Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home.