William Goldman, The Princess Bride
40 quotes
"And what have I done?" What? WHAT?...You've stolen them." With that, Cornelia fled, but Buttercup understood; she knew who "them" was. The boys. The beef-witted featherbrained rattledskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed BOYS."
"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."
"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?"
"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?"
"I mean, I really do think that love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpty-umpth time, that life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all."
"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."
"Who can know when his world is going to change? Who can tell before it happens, that every priorexperience, all the years, were a preparation for . . . nothing."
"Funny thing- Morgenstern's folk's were named Max and Valerie and his father was a doctor."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that."
"I would describe her more as a knitter than a doer."
"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."
"The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain."
"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."
"Love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops."
"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..."
"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?)"
"The hollowness was in his arms and the world was snowing."
"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."
"May my hands fall from my wrists before I kill an artist like yourself," said the man in black. "I would as soon destroy da Vinci. However"—and here he clubbed Inigo's head with the butt of his sword—"since I can't have you following me either, please understand that I hold you in the highest respect."