Quote

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.

William Goldman

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William Goldman
Age: 87 †
Born: 1931
Born: August 12
Died: 2018
Died: November 16
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Highland Park
Illinois
S. Morgenstern
Harry Longbaugh
Creative
Start
Jobs
Followed
Speak
Crucial
Firsts
Shut
First
Meetings
Must
Rule
Never
Least

More quotes by William Goldman

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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
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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
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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
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Just because you're beautiful and perfect, it's made you conceited.
William Goldman
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You're alive! Fezzik cried. The man in black sat immobile, like a ventriloquist's dummy, just his mouth moving. That is perhaps the most childishly obvious remark I have ever come across.
William Goldman
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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
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You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly.
William Goldman
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This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.
William Goldman
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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
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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 far, weak and warm and familiar. As...you...wish...
William Goldman
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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
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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.)
William Goldman
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I am as devoted to adventure now as then, and that’s never going to stop.
William Goldman
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Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
William Goldman
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But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid - that had to mean something.
William Goldman
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I’ll tell you the truth and its up to you to live with it.
William Goldman
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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?
William Goldman
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When I left you, you were already more beautiful than anything I dared to dream. In our years apart, my imaginings did their best to improve on your 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.
William Goldman
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You can never trust what you read.
William Goldman
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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.
William Goldman