William Goldman, The Princess Bride

"Hello there," Inigo hollered when he could wait no more. The man in black glanced up and grunted."I've been watching you."The man in black nodded."Slow going," Inigo said."Look, I don't mean to be rude," the man in black said finally, "but I'm rather busy just now, so try not to distract me."I'm sorry," Inigo said. The man in black grunted again."I don't suppose you could speed things up," Inigo said."If you want to speed things up so much," the man in black said, clearly quite angry now, "you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find some other helpful thing to do."

"The dweam of wuv wapped wiffin the gweater dweam of everwasting west. Eternity is our fwiend, wemember that, and wuv wiw fowwow you fowever."

"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."

"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."

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

"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?)"

"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..."

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

"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."

"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."

"The Serpent, to my interpretation, was pain."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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 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."

"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."