Beauty Tips by Roald Dahl

I recently read “The Twits”, by Roald Dahl (1980)*.  It’s a very funny, very slap-stick kid’s story and it really made me chuckle.  I just love the following passage, which outlines how Mrs Twit came to be so ugly.  I thoroughly agree with the sentiment......

“.... the funny thing is that Mrs Twit wasn’t born ugly. She’d had quite a nice face when she was young.  The ugliness had grown upon her year by year as she got older

Why would that happen?  I’ll tell you why.

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly that you can hardly bear to look at it.

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 you like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

I don’t think I can add to that!

*Dahl, R (1980)    The Twits, London, Penguin