Top 100 William Goldman Quotes
#1. 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. William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Cornelia Funke
#2. Many of the writers who have inspired me most are outside the genre: Humorists like Robert Benchley and James Thurber, screenwriters like Ben Hecht and William Goldman, and journalists/columnists like H.L. Mencken, Mike Royko and Molly Ivins.
John Scalzi
#3. As for the writers who have influenced me they are many. Hemingway, Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, William Goldman, Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so many others. As a kid Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Robert E. Howard.
Joe R. Lansdale
#4. I'm an affluent screenwriter and all that - I'm a known screenwriter, but I'm not in the fraternity of the very, very major people. I would say a guy like Ernie Lehman, William Goldman, and a few others are quite a cut above.
Rod Serling
#5. Life isn't just fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all. -William Goldman
Ann Brashares
#6. When I was starting out, William Goldman took me under his wing, and he's still the person I show pages to.
Aaron Sorkin
#7. The author and screenwriter William Goldman says that "the key to all story endings is to give the audience what it wants, but not in the way it expects.
Jon Steel
#8. The book I always say that influenced me, subconsciously, because at the time I didn't know I wanted to be a writer, was William Goldman's 'Marathon Man.' That was the first adult thriller that I loved. I read it when I was 15 or so, when my father gave it to me.
Harlan Coben
#9. William Goldman's Marathon Man was a novel that taught me about suspense. I was maybe 16 years old when I read it and I remember thinking, "You could put a gun to my head and I wouldn't put this book down." I loved that feeling - and want to give it others.
Harlan Coben
#10. I suppose I was dying again, so I asked the Lord of Permanent Affection for the strength to live the day. Clearly, the answer came in the affirmative."
"I didn't know there was such a Fellow," Buttercup said.
"Neither did I, in truth, but if He didn't exist, I didn't much want to either.
William Goldman
#11. Give the reader what they want, just not the way they expect it.
William Goldman
#12. Any experience is profitable if you allow it to be, all actions are profitable, no matter how badly you may suffer from them.
William Goldman
#14. Some of the wrong people die. Be ready for it. This isn't Curious George Uses the Potty.
William Goldman
#15. 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
#17. I could give you my word as a Spaniard," Inigo said.
"No good," the man in black replied. "I've known too many Spaniards.
William Goldman
#19. Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
William Goldman
#20. Sonny, don't you tell me what's worthwhile
true love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that.
William Goldman
#21. I am not a planner. I follow. Tell me what to do and no man alive does it better. But my mind is like fine wine; it travels badly.
William Goldman
#22. Well, why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place?
William Goldman
#23. Death of the heart,' the subtitle says, Whose death? And even more important maybe, whose heart?
William Goldman
#24. When this is over we will see who is right, and who is dead.
William Goldman
#26. For the first time in my life, I became actively interested in a book. Me the sports fanatic, me the game freak, me the only ten-year-old in Illinois with a hate on for the alphabet wanted to know what happened next.
William Goldman
#27. Inigo looked at him. "You mean you'll forgive me completely for saving your life if I completely forgive you for saving mine?"
"You're my friend, my only one."
"Pathetic, that's what we are," Inigo said.
"Athletic.
William Goldman
#28. She fell fast and she fell hard, but what did that matter, since she would have gladly dropped a thousand feet onto a bed of nails if Westley had been waiting at the bottom. Down,
William Goldman
#30. 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
#31. 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
#32. Princess. By S. Morgenstern. It's a kids' classic. Tell him I'll quiz him on it when I'm back next week and that he doesn't have to like it or anything, but if he doesn't, tell him I'll kill myself. Give him that message exactly please; I wouldn't want to apply any extra pressure or anything.
William Goldman
#33. I'm not about to argue with a full professor, but if you ever have a really unbreakable case of insomnia, do yourself a favor and start reading Chapter Three of the uncut version.
William Goldman
#34. It's an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.
William Goldman
#35. Will you draw your sword with your free hand?"
"I already have. Will you make a fist with yours?"
"It's clenched.
William Goldman
#36. (This was long after hairdressers; in truth, ever since there have been women, there have been hairdressers, Adam being the first, though the King James scholars do their very best to muddy this point.)
William Goldman
#37. There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C ... (before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy ... Well, this one left them all behind.
William Goldman
#39. Nobody knows anything ... Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.
William Goldman
#40. I am your Prince and you will marry me," Humperdinck said.
Buttercup whispered, "I am your servant and I refuse."
"I am you Prince and you cannot refuse."
"I am your loyal servant and I just did."
"Refusal means death."
"Kill me then.
William Goldman
#42. Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
William Goldman
#43. You always know what to do, you always know exactly what to do, you always do exactly what's right for you, and the rest of the world can go hang..
William Goldman
#44. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of suffering. She
William Goldman
#45. Look, are you just fiddling around with me or what?"
"I just want you to feel you're doing well. I hate for people o die embarrassed.
William Goldman
#46. It's not important, believe me; the past has a way of being past.
William Goldman
#47. There are always too few perfect breasts in this world; leave yours alone.
William Goldman
#48. There were stories that the King was dying, that he was already dead, that he had been dead long since, that he was fine.
William Goldman
#51. The Count was Prince Humperdink's only confidant. His last name was Rugen, but no one needed to use it - he was the only Count in the country, the title having been bestowed by the Prince as a birthday present some years before, the happening taking place, naturally, at one of the Countess' parties.
William Goldman
#52. When I got discharged from the Army, I made a vow never to go back on an Army post. No big deal, just a simple lifelong vow.
William Goldman
#55. 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.)
William Goldman
#58. Mawidge is a dweam wiffin a dweam. The dweam of wuv wapped wiffin the gweater dweam of everwasting west. Eternity is our fwiend, wemember that, and wuv wiw fowwow you fowever.
William Goldman
#59. Life isn't fair, it's just fairer than death, that's all.
William Goldman
#60. One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print.
William Goldman
#62. Your father is dying."
"Drat!" said the Prince, "That means I shall have to get married.
William Goldman
#63. 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
#64. If you write movies, you never know who the enemy is. Someone is going to fuck you, that's a given.
William Goldman
#65. Whoever invented the meeting must have had Hollywood in mind. I think they should consider giving Oscars for meetings: Best Meeting of the Year, Best Supporting Meeting, Best Meeting Based on Material from Another Meeting.
William Goldman
#66. A skillful playwright might have a good time with the story of the assassination of President William McKinley, and especially with the three most flamboyant political figures involved: Mark Hanna, Theodore Roosevelt, and Emma Goldman.
Russell Baker
#67. I only wish we could stay for his grief - it should be Homeric.
William Goldman
#68. There were some things you did, no matter what, and when a friend needed help, you helped them.
William Goldman
#69. No one could be following us yet?" the Spaniard asked. "No one," the Sicilian assured him. "It would be inconceivable." "Absolutely inconceivable?" "Absolutely, totally, and, in all other ways, inconceivable," the Sicilian reassured him. "Why do you ask?
William Goldman
#70. 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
#71. 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 afar, weak and warm and familiar. "As ... you ... wish ...
William Goldman
#74. Don't come out all that well a lot of the time, but that can't be helped.
William Goldman
#77. The hollowness was in his arms and the world was snowing.
William Goldman
#78. He always felt better when he could dole out pain alone.
William Goldman
#79. 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
#82. There was no denying the fact that there was a certain excitement in the air.
William Goldman
#83. Guess?" Vizzini cried. "I don't guess. I think. I ponder. I deduce. Then I decide. But I never guess.
William Goldman
#84. Just because you're beautiful and perfect, it's made you conceited.
William Goldman
#85. You could concentrate much more deeply when you were alone with agony.
William Goldman
#86. You had to admire a guy who called his own new book a classic before it was published and anyone else had a chance to read it.
William Goldman
#87. Buttercup's parents did not have exactly what you might call a happy marriage. All they ever dreamed of was leaving each other.
William Goldman
#88. Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.
William Goldman
#89. As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely essential.
William Goldman
#90. 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.
William Goldman
#91. I'll tell you the truth and its up to you to live with it.
William Goldman
#92. 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.
William Goldman
#93. He had risked his life and now it was walking away from him, hand-in-hand with a Ruffian prince.
William Goldman
#94. The main thing was to know the world, every twenty-five years or so, back for a couple hundred years, and if you had that info handy, always there under your belt, then you could figure out the gaps.
William Goldman
#95. We have more than hope," Buttercup said. "There is true love.
William Goldman
#96. The new doctors all agreed on various tried-and-true medications, and within forty-eight hours of their coming on the case, the King was dead.
William Goldman
#97. If all that's going on in your scenes is what's going on in your scenes, think about it a long time.
William Goldman
#98. You have to protect your writing time. You have to protect it to the death.
William Goldman
#100. She does not get eaten by the sharks at this time," my father said. I looked up at him. "What?" "You looked like you were getting too involved and bothered so I thought I would let you relax.
William Goldman
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