William Goldman Quotes

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

A good writer is not someone who knows how to write- but how to rewrite

If all that's going on in your scenes is what's going on in your scenes, think about it a long time.

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

The boys. The village boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattleskulled clodpated dimdomed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed boys. How could anybody accuse her of stealing them? Why would anybody want them anyway?

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

One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print.

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.

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.

The Prince found Buttercup waiting unhappily outside his chamber doors. It's my letter,' she began. 'I cannot make it right.' Come in, come in,' the Prince said gently. 'Maybe we can help you.' She sat down in the same chair as before. 'All right, I'll close my eyes and listen; read to me.' Westley, my passion, my sweet, my only my own. Come back, come back. I shall kill myself otherwise. Yours in torment, Buttercup.' She looked at Humperdinck. 'Well? Do you think I'm throwing myself at him?

No more rhymes now I mean it!” “Anybody want a peanut?” “AAHH!

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

Her mother was my wife," the Count roared, loudest of all. "You pathetic excuse for am money-grubbing fool, you disgrace to the face of the world." And with a shriek of disgust he turned and was gone. Guilietta was beside Inigo then, so excited. "Daddy likes you," she said.

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.

Duhhhhhhh, tanks, Buttercup.

When I was your age, television was called books.

The infant is ten and he stays.

Someone would have to keep his wits, and he had assumed automatically that since Fezzik had so few, he would find retaining them not all that difficult.

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.

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

Flaws would not only bring death but, far worse, humiliation.

Look. (Grown-ups skip this paragraph) I'm not about to tell you this book has a tragic ending. I already said in the very first line how it was my favorite in all the world. But there's a lot of bad stuff coming.

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.

One of the easiest things in the world is not to write... If it were easy, everyone would do it.

Have fun storming the castle!

I mean if we even had a wheelbarrow, that would be something.

You think this is a trap then?" the Count asked. "I always think everything is a trap until proven otherwise," the Prince answered. "Which is why I'm still alive.

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?

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.

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.

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.

My Westley will come for me.

I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard.

[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.

Fool!" cried the hunchback. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

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

Buttercup's mother hesitated, then put her stew spoon down. (This was after stew, but so is everything. When the first man first clambered from the slime and made his first home on land, what he had for supper that first night was stew.)

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

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.

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

Mawwage. Mawwage is what bwings us together today.

But just as he knew the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.

He's right on top of us. I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using.

While he was watching the ships, Buttercup shoved him with all her strength remaining. [...] Down went the man in black. [...] "You can die too for all I care," she said, and then she turned away. Words followed her. Whispered from far, weak and warm and familiar. "As...you...wish..."

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.)

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.

Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. If this is true, or if you are one of the people who believe this is true, then the one universal way to enjoy life is still the same, which is to learn to be grateful that it is not worse!!

There are always too few perfect breasts in this world; leave yours alone.