William Goldman Quotes (65 Quotes)


    Sonny, true love is the greatest thing, in the world -- except for a nice MLT -- mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is lean and the tomato is ripe.

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

    Fact Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is, no question, the most popular thing I've ever been connected with. When I die, if the Times gives me an obit, it's going to be because of Butch.

    What are we going to do about Billy That was the phrase that haunted me those first ten years. I pretended not to care, but secretly I was petrified. Everyone and everything was passing me by. I had no real friends, no single person who shared an equal interest in all games. I seemed busy, busy, busy, but I suppose, if pressed, I might have admitted that, for all my frenzy, I was very much alone.

    One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print.


    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.

    Never argue with your wife about hostility when she's a certified Freudian.

    Studio executives are intelligent, brutally overworked men and women who share one thing in common with baseball managers they wake up every morning of the world with the knowledge that sooner or later they're going to get fired.

    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.

    As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless - and absolutely essential.

    Yes, I am a failed playwright. I had three shows on Broadway by the time I was 30. They all flopped, and I fled.


    Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.

    I have always liked it, it is still my favorite book. I do not like my writing, but I like this book. . . . I wish I liked my own writing more, but like all of us, I am trapped inside my own skin.

    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.


    Related Authors


    Charles Dickens - Nathaniel Hawthorne - Miguel de Cervantes - Maxim Gorky - James Clavell - Jack Higgins - Honore de Balzac - Erich Segal - Alistair Maclean - Aldous Huxley


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