quote · Legacy record
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.
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.
Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Roald Dahl
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1916 to 1990; Wikidata Q25161, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25161 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 147916; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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