William Goldman

Novelist

1931-08-12

Quotes by William Goldman

• The hollowness was in his arms and the world was snowing.

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• It was only when the giant got halfway down the incline that he suddenly, happily, burst into flame and continued his trip saying, NO SURVIVORS, NO SURVIVORS! in a manner that could only indicate deadly sincerity.It was seeing him happily burning and advancing that startled the Brute Squad to screaming. And once that happened, why, everybody panicked and ran...

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• The Countess was considerably younger than her husband. All of her clothes came from Paris (this was after Paris) and she had superb taste. (This was after taste too, but only just. And since it was such a new thing, and since the Countess was the only lady in all Florin to posses it, is it any wonder she was the leading hostess in the land?)

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• Love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops.

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• I must court her now,' said the Prince. 'Leave us alone for a minute.' He rode the white expertly down the hill. Buttercup had never seen such a giant beast. Or such a rider. 'I am your Prince and you will marry me,' Humperdinck said. Buttercup whispered, 'I am your servant and I refuse.' 'I am your Prince and you cannot refuse.' 'I am your loyal servant and I just did.' 'Refusal means death.' 'Kill me then.' 'I am your Prince and I'm not that bad — how could you rather be dead than married to me?' 'Because,' Buttercup said, 'marriage involves love, and that is not a pastime at which I excel. I tried once, and it went badly, and I am sworn never to love another.' 'Love?' said Prince Humperdinck. 'Who mentioned love? Not me, I can tell you. Look: there must always be a male heir to the throne of Florin. That's me. Once my father dies, there won't be an heir, just a king. That's me again. When that happens, I'll marry and have children until there is a son. So you can either marry me and be the richest and most powerful woman in a thousand miles and give turkeys away at Christmas and provide me a son, or you can die in terrible pain in the very near future. Make up your own mind.' 'I'll never love you.' 'I wouldn't want it if I had it.' 'Then by all means let us marry.

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• 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.

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• 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, 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.

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• The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain.

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• I would describe her more as a knitter than a doer.

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

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• This was after stew. But then, so is everything. When the first man crawled out of the slime and went to make his home on land, what he had for dinner that night was stew.

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• I don't like killing a girl, the Spaniard said.God does it all the time; if it doesn't bother Him, don't let it worry you.

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• When I was your age, television was called books.

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• At 8:23 there seemed every chance of a lasting alliance starting between Florin and Guilder.At 8:24 the two nations were very close to war.

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• 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.)

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• I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm.

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• Who can know when his world is going to change? . . . Who would suspect that in the morning a different child would wake? . . . Perhaps I should have at least known something, but maybe not; who can sense revelation in the wind?What happened was just this: I got hooked on the story.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.

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• 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.

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• The Princess BrideS. Morgenstern'sClassic Tale of True Loveand High AdventureYou 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.

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• Funny thing- Morgenstern's folk's were named Max and Valerie and his father was a doctor.

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