William Goldman Quotes

Duhhhhhhh, tanks, Buttercup.

(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.)

Buttercup's mother whirled on him. 'Did you forget to pay your taxes?' (This was after taxes. But everything is after taxes. Taxes were here even before stew.)

He always felt better when he could dole out pain alone.

Oh, Fezzik . . . Fezzik . . ." "What . . . ?" "I had such rhymes for you . . . ." "What rhymes? . . ." Silence. The fourth coil was finished. "Inigo, what rhymes?" Silence. Snake breath. "Inigo, I want to know the rhymes before I die - Inigo, I really want to know - Inigo, tell me the rhymes," Fezzik said, and by now he was very frustrated and, more than that, he was spectacularly angry and one arm came clear of one coil and that made it a bit less of a chore to fight free of the second coil and that meant he could take that arm and bring it to the aid of the other arm and now he was yelling it out, "You're not going anywhere until I know those rhymes" and the sound of his own voice was really very impressive, deep and resonant, and who was this snake anyway, getting in the path of Fezzik when there were rhymes to learn,

God grant you your quota of smiles.

You mock my pain! Life is pain, anyone who says otherwise is obviously selling something!

you were already more beautiful than anything I dared to dream. In our years apart, my imaginings did their best to improve on you perfection. At night, your face was forever behind my eyes. And now I see that that vision who kept me company in my loneliness was a hag compared to the beauty now before me." –Westley

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

It was 5.48, and she knew that she would never die.

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

The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain.

We'll never survive!"
"Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has.

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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.

[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.

We have more than hope," Buttercup said. "There is true love.

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 ...

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.

Back, Witch - "
"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife -

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But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid - that had to mean something.

A word?" the Sicilian said, raising his arms. His mile was more angelic than his face
Buttercup halted. "Speak."
"We are but poor circus performers," the Sicilian explained, "It is dark and we are lost. We were told there was a village nearby that might enjoy our skills."
"You were misinformed," Buttercup told him, "There is no one, not for many miles."
"Then there will be no one to hear you scream.

Why was it worth so much of your life?" "Because I could not fail him again." "Fail who?" "My father.

The Queen's Pride was his ship, and he loved her. (That was the way his sentences always went: It is raining today and I love you. My cold is better and I love you. Say hello to Horse and I love you. Like that.)

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.

There is one crucial rule that must be followed in all creative meetings. Never speak first. At least at the start, your job is to shut up.

All right. Your name before mine. You are the greatest sword maker, you deserve to come first."
"Have a good trip back."
"WHY WON'T YOU?"
"Because, my friend Yeste, you are very famous and very rich, and so you should be, because you make
wonderful weapons. But you must also make them for any fool who happens along. I am poor, and no
one knows me in all the world except you and Inigo, but I do not have to suffer fools."
"You are an artist," Yeste said.
"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.

I just know once you're over your emotional outbursts, you'll come up with-'
I mean if we even had a wheelbarrow, that would be something,' Westley said.

Love is many things none of them logical.

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?

The tears that kept Buttercup company the remainder of the day were not at all like those that had blinded her into the tree trunk. Those were noisy and hot; they pulsed. These were silent and steady and all they did was remind her that she wasn't good enough. She was seventeen, and every male she'd ever known had crumbled at her feet and it meant nothing. The one time it really mattered, she wasn't good enough.

Be careful, this is the greatest fencer since the death of the Wizard of Corsica. Do not burgle.

There was no denying the fact that there was a certain excitement in the air.

One of the things that happens to careers out here is that people destroy themselves because they begin to think they're wonderful. They begin to think they know what they're doing, and the minute that happens, it's over.

Get used to disappointment.

Give the reader what they want, just not the way they expect it.

Two things happened:

(1) The door, quite clearly, locked.
(2) Out went the candles on the high walls.

"DON'T BE FRIGHTENED!" Inigo screamed.

"I'M NOT, I'M NOT!" Fezzik screamed.

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.

One final silly face.
One blessed responding laugh.
Fezzik closed his eyes then, thinking only this: thank God I was a giant after all....

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..

We have now decided that the poisoned cup is most likely in front of you. But the poison is powder made from iocane and iocane comes only from Australia and Australia, as everyone knows, is peopled with criminals and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as I don't trust you, which means I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

I write out of revenge.

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.

The only way forward is to never look back.

I am as devoted to adventure now as then, and that's never going to stop.

[Inigo corners Count Rugen, knocks his sword aside, and slashes his cheek, giving him a scar just like Inigo's]
Inigo Montoya: Offer me money.
Count Rugen: Yes!
Inigo Montoya: Power, too, promise me that.
[He slashes his other cheek]
Count Rugen: All that I have and more. Please ...
Inigo Montoya: Offer me anything I ask for.
Count Rugen: Anything you want ...
[Rugen knocks Inigo's sword aside and lunges. But Inigo traps his arm and aims his sword at Rugen's stomach]
Inigo Montoya: I want my father back, you son of a bitch!

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.

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.

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

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.

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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.

Inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

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Butch: Now after we ... wait a minute ...
Sundance: What?
Butch: You didn't see Lefors out there?
Sundance: Lefors ? No.
Butch: Good. For a minute there I thought we were in trouble.

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.

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.

And when she at last came out, her eyes were dry. Her parents stared up from their silent breakfast at her. They both started to rise but she put a hand out, stopped them. 'I can care for myself, please,' and she set about getting some food. They watched her closely.
In point of fact, she had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, and 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 was eighteen. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn't seem to care.
'You're all right?' her mother asked.
Buttercup sipped her cocoa. 'Fine,' she said.
'You're sure?' her father wondered.
'Yes,' Buttercup replied. There was a very long pause. 'But I must never love again.'

She never did.

Truth is terrific, reality is even better, but believability is the best of all

That explains it." Actually, of course, it didn't explain anything, but whenever doctors are confused about something, which is really more frequently than any of us would do well to think about, they always snatch at something in the vicinity of the case and add, "That explains it.

Have fun storming the castle!

The man in black retreated before the slashing of the great sword. He tried to sidestep, tried to parry, tried to somehow escape the doom that was now inevitable. But there was no way. He could block fifty thrusts; the fifty-first flicked through, and now his left arm was bleeding. He could thwart thirty ripostes, but not the thirty-first, and now his shoulder bled. The

You could concentrate much more deeply when you were alone with agony.

I don't know that you'll understand this, but once upon a time, long ago, I was a scholar and a marathon man, but that fella's gone now, dead I suppose, but I remember something he thought, which was that if you don't learn the mistakes of the past, you'll be doomed to repeat them. Well we've been making a mistake with people like you, because public trials are bullshit and executions are games for winners - all this time we should have been giving back pain. That's the real lesson. That's the loser's share, just pain, pure and simple, pain and torture, no hotshot lawyers running around trying to see that justice is done. I think we'd have a nice peaceful place here if all you warmakers knew you better not start something because if you lost, agony was just around the bend. That's what I'd like to give you. Agony. Not what you're suffering now. I mean a lifetime of it, 'cause that's the only degree of justice I think we're ready for down here yet, and I know any humanist might disagree with me too, but I don't think you will, because you had a lot to do with educating me, I'm like you now, except I'm better at it, because you're going to die and I've still got a long way to go.

Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

What are you so afraid oft"
Fezzik raised his great head and managed to look at them. "Getting water up my nose," he whispered. "I hate it so much." And then he buried his head again.

The chapters on whaling in MOBY DICK can be omitted by all but the most punishment-loving readers.

Life is difficult.
Anyone who says different is
trying to sell you something.

I WANT DOMINGO MONTOYA YOU SON OF A BITCH!

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?

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.

We are one heartbeat," and she kissed him softly and said, "And will always be.

By day it is filled with boat traffic - water
buses, delivery boats, gondolas - if something floats
and it's in Venice, it moves along the Grand Canal.
And by daylight it is one of the glories of the Earth.
But at night, especially when the moon is full
and the soft illumination reflects off the water and
onto the palaces - I don't know how to describe
it so I won't, but if you died and in your will you
asked for your ashes to be spread gently on the
Grand Canal at midnight with a full moon,
everyone would know this about you - you loved and understood beauty.

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.

He's gaining on us," the Turk said. "That is also inconceivable," the Sicilian said. "Before I stole this boat we're in, I made many inquiries as to what was the fastest ship on all of Florin Channel and everyone agreed it was this one." "You're right," the Turk agreed, staring back. "He isn't gaining on us. He's just getting closer, that's all.

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

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.

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.

Any experience is profitable if you allow it to be, all actions are profitable, no matter how badly you may suffer from them.

Cynics are simply thwarted romantics.

Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life.

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.

You miserable vomitous mass,

Groin' is a funny word," Babe said quietly. "I don't know the German for it, but I'm sure you do." He began to talk more quickly then, because he could tell Szell was starting to die. "Oh, maybe you didn't see it in the papers, but they've made this fabulous theological discovery, do you know what they've found? People don't go to heaven or hell, they all go to one spot first, sort of a way station, and that's were things happen, because, you probably won't believe this, but some people on this earth have been known to do bad things to other people, innocent people, and at this way station, the innocent people wait, and then when their savager comes, they get to exact a little portion of revenge. God says revenge is good for the soul. Do you know who's waiting for you, Mr. Szell? All the Jews. They're all there, and you know what else? They've all got drills, like you used on me - remember how you said how wonderful it was, anyone could learn that, how to use them? Well, they have and they're waiting, and I don't know about you, but I think it's gonna be terrific."

Szell was almost dead now, but Babe just had time to get it in.

Have a swell eternity," Babe said...

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.

I'm not witch. I'm your wife.

He would find the six-fingered man. He would go up to him. He would say simply, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die," and then, oh then, the duel.

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.

If you write movies, you never know who the enemy is. Someone is going to fuck you, that's a given.

And 5:25 when the screaming started outside the main gate.

Westly, Westly, Westly, Westly, Westly,
darling Westly, adored Westly, sweet perfect Westly, whisper that I have a chance to win your love. And with that, she dared the bravest thing she'd ever done: she looked right into his eyes.
He closed the door in her face.

Dummy, dummy, go out now and fill your tummy.

If there's ever a question about anything, you can always count on me to get it wrong.

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.

You're certainly blooming, Billy. Before my very eyes. I just don't know into what.

Inside and out, Westley's world was ripping apart and he could do nothing but crack along with it.

I can't keep my head above water one minute to the next: it's not just the parties and the goo-gooing with what's-her-name, I've got the decide how long the Five Hundredth Anniversary Parade is going to be and where does it start and when does it start and which nobleman gets to march in front of which other nobleman so that everyone's still speaking to me at the end of it, plus I've got a wife to murder and a country to frame for it, plus I've got to get the war going once that's all happened, and all this is stuff I've got to do myself. Here's what it all comes down to: I'm just swamped, Ty.

The Sicilian's word was not just law, it was gospel.

Aaron would not come out
aaron entered into agony.

You would never in this world have beaten him. But I tell you this: he would never in this world have beaten you.

I would love to say that I wrote (Good Will Hunting). Here is the truth. In my obit it will say that I wrote it. People don't want to think those two cute guys wrote it. What happened was, they had the script. It was their script. They gave it to Rob [Reiner] to read, and there was a great deal of stuff in the script dealing with the F.B.I. trying to use Matt Damon for spy work because he was so brilliant in math. Rob said, "Get rid of it." They then sent them in to see me for a day - I met with them in New York - and all I said to them was, "Rob's right. Get rid of the F.B.I. stuff. Go with the family, go with Boston, go with all that wonderful stuff." And they did. I think people refuse to admit it because their careers have been so far from writing, and I think it's too bad. I'll tell you who wrote a marvelous script once, Sylvester Stallone. Rocky's a marvelous script. God, read it, it's wonderful. It's just got marvelous stuff. And then he stopped suddenly because it's easier being a movie star and making all that money than going in your pit and writing a script. But I did not write [Good Will Hunting], alas. I would not have written the "It's not your fault" scene. I'm going to assume that 148 percent of the people in this room have seen a therapist. I certainly have, for a long time. Hollywood always has this idea that it's this shrink with only one patient. I mean, that scene with Robin Williams gushing and Matt Damon and they're hugging, "It's not your fault, it's n

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.

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,

In the kitchen, Chub clung to the wall, made no sound whatsoever, but his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, as he told himself, kept telling himself, that life was material, everything was material - you just had to live long enough to see how to use it.