William Goldman famous quotes

Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high.
-- William Goldman

#Wall #Princess #Heart

Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.
-- William Goldman

#Love #Beach #Soulmate

We’ll never survive!” “Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.
-- William Goldman

#Optimism #Doubt #Nonsense

Love is many things none of them logical.
-- William Goldman

#Love #Love Is #Logical

True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops.
-- William Goldman

#True Love #Sweet Love #Healing

When I was your age, television was called books.
-- William Goldman

#Book #Age #Television

He held up a book then. “I'm going to read it to you for relax.” “Does it have any sports in it?” “Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest Ladies. Snakes. Spiders... Pain. Death. Brave men. Cowardly men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.” “Sounds okay,” I said and I kind of closed my eyes.
-- William Goldman

#Sports #Pain #Revenge

I love you. Okay? Want it louder? I LOVE YOU. Spell it out, should I? I ell-oh-vee-ee why-oh-you. Want it backward? You love I.
-- William Goldman

#Love You #Want #Ells

When was the last time you read a book? The truth now. And picture books don't count-I mean something with print in it.
-- William Goldman

#Book #Mean #Lasts

Westley closed his eyes. There was pain coming and he had to be ready for it. He had to prepare his brain, he had to get his mind controlled and safe from their efforts, so that they could not break him. He would not let them break him. He would hold together against anything and all. If only they gave him sufficient time to make ready, he knew he could defeat pain. It turned out they gave him sufficient time (it was months before the Machine was ready). But they broke him anyway.
-- William Goldman

#Pain #Eye #Effort

People don't remember me. Really. It's not a paranoid thing; I just have this habit of slipping through memories. It doesn't bother me all that much, except I guess that's a lie; it does. For some reason, I test very high on forgettability.
-- William Goldman

#Memories #Lying #People

Writing is finally about one thing: going into a room alone and doing it. Putting words on paper that have never been there in quite that way before. And although you are physically by yourself, the haunting Demon never leaves you, that Demon being the knowledge of your own terrible limitations, your hopeless inadequacy, the impossibility of ever getting it right. No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound.
-- William Goldman

#Writing #Ideas #Dancing

Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
-- William Goldman

#Life #Sad #Death

Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
-- William Goldman

#Delay

The enemy is always in the mind.
-- William Goldman

#Mind #Enemy

Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.
-- William Goldman

#Life #Pain #Selling

I’ll tell you the truth and its up to you to live with it.
-- William Goldman

Cynics are simply thwarted romantics.
-- William Goldman

And that's when she put her book down. And looked at me. And said it: "Life isn't fair, Bill. we tell our children that it is, but it's a terrible thing to do. It's not only a lie, it's a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it never has been, and it's never going to be.
-- William Goldman

#Life #Children #Lying

Who says life is fair, where is that written?
-- William Goldman

#Life Is

In Hollywood, no one knows anything.
-- William Goldman

#Hollywood

This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
-- William Goldman

#Book #World #My Favorite

You don't want to be rude but you have to be careful - there are a lot of strange people out there. (Goldman attributes this quote to Cliff Robertson.)
-- William Goldman

#People #Rude #Want

Chapter One. The Bride." He held up the book then. "I'm reading it to you for relax." He practically shoved the book in my face. "By S. Morgenstern. Great Florinese writer. The Princess Bride. He too came to America. S. Morgenstern. Dead now in New York. The English is his own. He spoke eight tongues." Here my father put down the book and held up all his fingers. "Eight. Once in Florin City...
-- William Goldman

#New York #Father #Book

Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.
-- William Goldman

#Beautiful #Mind #Enough

There’s death coming up, and you better understand this:some of the wrong people die.Be ready for it.
-- William Goldman

#People #Ready

I don't guess. I think. I ponder. I deduce. Then I decide. But I never guess.
-- William Goldman

#Thinking #Pondering

Have fun storming the castle!
-- William Goldman

#Fun #Having Fun #Castles

There is no room in my body for anything but you.
-- William Goldman

#Body #Rooms

Westley and I are joined by the bond of love and you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.
-- William Goldman

#Track #Break #Thousand

The Princess Bride S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure You had to admire a guy who called his own new book a classic before it was published and anyone had a chance to read it.
-- William Goldman

#Book #Princess #Adventure

You're alive!" Fezzik cried. The man in black sat immobile, like a ventriloquist's dummy, just his mouth moving. "That is perhaps the most childishly obvious remark I have ever come across...
-- William Goldman

#Moving #Men #Black

I say you are a coward and you are; I think you hunt only to reassure yourself that you are not what you are: the weakest thing to ever walk the Earth. He will come for me and then we will be gone, and you will be helpless for all your hunting, because Westley and I are joined by the bond of love and you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.
-- William Goldman

#Thinking #Hunting #Track

There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C. when Saul and Delilah Korn's inadvertent discovery swept across Western civilization. (Before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy, because although everyone agrees with the formula of affection times purity times intensity times duration, no one has ever been completely satisfied with how much weight each element should receive. But on any system, there are five that everyone agrees deserve full marks. Well, this one left them all behind.
-- William Goldman

#Couple #Kissing #Discovery

I have stayed these years in my hovel because of you. I have taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids.
-- William Goldman

#Strong #Morning #Prayer

Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment.
-- William Goldman

#Disappointment #Used #Consequence

Why do you wear a mask and hood?" I think everybody will in the near future," was the man in black's reply. "They're terribly comfortable.
-- William Goldman

#Men #Thinking #Black

Now what happens?" asked the man in black. "We face each other as God intended," Fezzik said. "No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone." "You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?
-- William Goldman

#Mean #Men #Rocks

See?" Fezzik pointed then. Far down, at the very bottom of the mountain path, the man in black could be seen running. "Inigo is beaten." Inconceivable!" exploded the Sicilian. Fezzik never dared disagree with the hunchback. "I'm so stupid," Fezzik nodded. "Inigo has not lost to the man in black, he has defeated him. And to prove it he has put on all the man in black's clothes and masks and hoods and boots and gained eighty pounds.
-- William Goldman

#Running #Stupid #Men

You seem a decent fellow," Inigo said. "I hate to kill you." You seem a decent fellow," answered the man in black. "I hate to die.
-- William Goldman

#Hate #Men #Black

Let me get this thing straight, Inigo--we had SCRAPS for dinner? I'M in YOUR fantasy and the best you can come up with is SCRAPS?" She turned toward the door then. "You have no chance of winning my heart.
-- William Goldman

#Heart #Winning #Doors

There were some things you did, no matter what, and when a friend needed help, you helped them.
-- William Goldman

#Matter #Helping #Needed

Let's look on the bright side: we're having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are.
-- William Goldman

#Adventure #People #Looks

Anything there is that I can do for you, I will do for you; anything there is that I cannot do, I will learn to do.
-- William Goldman

The infant is ten and he stays,
-- William Goldman

#Infant

It's one of my biggest memories of my father reading. I had pneumonia, remember, but I was a little better now, and madly caught up in the book, and one thing you know when you're ten is that, no matter what, there's gonna be a happy ending. They can sweat all they want to scare you, the authors, but back of it all you know, you just have no doubt, that in the long run justice is going to win out.
-- William Goldman

#Running #Memories #Father

I love you,” Buttercup said. “I know this must come as something of a surprise, since all I’ve ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more.
-- William Goldman

#Love You #Done #Surprise

The easiest thing to do on earth is not write…But this is life on earth, you can't have everything.
-- William Goldman

#Writing #Earth

The first morning after Westley's departure, Buttercup thought she was entitled to do nothing more than sit around moping and feeling sorry for herself. After all, the love of her life had fled, life had no meaning, how could you face the future, et cetera, et cetera.
-- William Goldman

#Morning #Sorry #Feelings

I guess the most amazing thing about crying though is that when you're in it, you think it'll go on forever but it never really lasts half what you think. Not in terms of real time. In terms of real emotions, it's worse than you think, but not by the clock.
-- William Goldman

#Real #Thinking #Forever

Westley: Hear this now: I will always come for you. Buttercup: But how can you be sure? Westley: This is true love-you think this happens every day? Westley: I told you I would always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me? Buttercup: Well...you were dead. Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while. Buttercup: i will never doubt again. Westley: There will never be a need.
-- William Goldman

#Princess #Love You #Thinking

No. Not yet. A craftsman only. But I dream to be an artist. I pray that someday, if I work with enough care, if I am very very lucky, I will make a weapon that is a work of art. Call me an artist then, and I will answer.
-- William Goldman

#Dream #Art #Lucky

i have come to terms with my life, and that is my affair - i am not cold, i swear, but i have decided certain things, it is best for me to ignore emotion; i have not been happy dealing with it.
-- William Goldman

#Emotion #Cold #Affair

Is this a kissing book?
-- William Goldman

#Book #Princess #Kissing

[Prince Humperdinck] was seventy-five minutes away from his first female murder, and he wondered if he could get his fingers to her throat before even the start of a scream. He had been practicing on giant sausages all the afternoon and had the movements down pretty pat, but then, giant sausages weren’t necks and all the wishing in the world wouldn’t make them so.
-- William Goldman

#Wish #Movement #Afternoon

I've been in the revenge buisness for so long, now that it's over I don't know what to do with the rest of my life.
-- William Goldman

#Revenge #Princess #Long

I understand everything,” he said. “You understand nothing, but it really doesn’t matter, since what you mean is, you’re glad to see me, just as I’m glad to see you because no more loneliness.” “That’s what I mean,” said Fezzik.
-- William Goldman

#Loneliness #Mean #Matter

You are wonderful, Father.""I'm more than wonderful, how dare you insult me.
-- William Goldman

#Father #Insult #Wonderful

Liar! Liar!" shrieked suddenly from the now open trap door. Miracle Max whirled. "Back, Witch--" he commanded. "I'm not a witch, I'm your wife--" she was advancing on him now, an ancient tiny fury--"and after what you've just done I don't think I want to be that any more--
-- William Goldman

#Liars #Thinking #Doors

She loves you," the Prince cried. "She loves you still and you love her, so think of that--think of this too: in all this world, you might have been happy, genuinely happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, not really, no matter what the storybooks say, but you could have had it, and so, I would think, no one will ever suffer a loss as great as you.
-- William Goldman

#Couple #Love You #Loss