William Goldman
You can never trust what you read.Collection: Trust
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.Collection: Alone
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.Collection: Death
Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.
Nobody knows anything.
We are men of action, lies do not become us.
The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.
Yes, I am a failed playwright. I had three shows on Broadway by the time I was 30. They all flopped, and I fled.
Never argue with your wife about hostility when she's a certified Freudian.
If you think of human experience as a pie, then the wedge Hollywood is reflecting now is getting smaller and smaller.
Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life.
But this is life on earth, you can't have everything.
As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely essential.
One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print.
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.
I haven't done much rereading or rewatching stuff I've written over the years, but I did look at 'Misery' before I started the play. I liked it. Not much I would change.
Stephen King is one of my all-time heroes, so, of course, the pressure never lets up. Every second, you hope he'll like it. I remember getting a call from him after he read my script for 'Hearts in Atlantis.' He liked it. Talk about relief.
I had two little daughters - I think they were 7 and 4 at the time - and I said, 'I'll write you a story. What do you want it to be about?' One of them said 'a princess' and the other one said 'a bride.' I said, 'That'll be the title.'
We had terrible trouble finding a Buttercup because she had to be so beautiful. We had all kinds of pretty girls come in, but they weren't this staggering thing.
It's always true, and in all the arts. When one guy's terrific, there will be a lot of other terrific guys around. And this last decade, the '90s, has been a period of very low talent.
Coming from where I came from, the Midwest, in the era I was born, the '30s, movies were glorious fun - Bette Davis dying or whatever. But whatever they were, they were not serious.
Hollywood is a pretty edgy place.
I don't want the power. When a project is given to me, and I say yes, I'm gonna oblige everybody who has the power to try to make it work.
If you're going to abridge a book in the author's own words, you can't go sticking your own in.
There's only three movies I've been involved with in my whole life that I really care about. 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' was one, and 'Princess Bride' was the second, and 'Hearts in Atlantis' is the third.
One of my great breaks is I have only done work I wanted to do.
A good writer is not someone who knows how to write- but how to rewriteCollection: Writing
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Fields
One of the easiest things in the world is not to write... If it were easy, everyone would do it.Collection: Writing
Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high.Collection: Wall
I don't guess. I think. I ponder. I deduce. Then I decide. But I never guess.Collection: Thinking
Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.Collection: Love
It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy, even the normal ones are weird.Collection: Crazy
If all that's going on in your scenes is what's going on in your scenes, think about it a long time.Collection: Thinking
Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches! If your love were-" "I don't understand that first one yet," Buttercup interrupted. She was starting to get very excited now. "Let me get this straight. Are you saying my love is a grain of sand and yours is this other thing? Images confuse me so - is this universal business of yours bigger than my sand? Help me, Westley. I have the feeling we're on the verge of something just terribly important.Collection: Beach
My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!Collection: Movie
You have to protect your writing time. You have to protect it to the death.Collection: Writing
"We’ll never survive!” “Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has."Collection: Optimistic
True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops.Collection: True Love
I’ll tell you the truth and its up to you to live with it.Collection: Up To You
I write out of revenge.Collection: Revenge
When I was your age, television was called books.Collection: Book
Who says life is fair, where is that written?Collection: Life Is
But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid - that had to mean something.Collection: Girl
No more rhymes now I mean it!” “Anybody want a peanut?” “AAHH!Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Sports
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.Collection: Can Do
The infant is ten and he stays.Collection: Infant