William Goldman

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__ 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__ me. Once my father dies, there won__ be an heir, just a king. That__ me again. When that happens, I__l 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__l never love you.' 'I wouldn__ want it if I had it.' 'Then by all means let us marry.

The Queen's Pride was his ship, and he loved her. (That was the way his sentences always went: It is raining today and I love you. My cold is better and I love you. Say hello to Horse and I love you. Like that.)

He held up a book then. __'m going to read it to you for relax.___oes it have any sports in it?___encing. 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.___ounds 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.

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 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.

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__ going to tell you something once and then whether you die is strictly up to you," Westley said, lying pleasantly on the bed. "What I__ going to tell you is this: drop your sword, and if you do, then I will leave with this baggage here"__e glanced at Buttercup_"and you will be tied up but not fatally, and will be free to go about your business. And if you choose to fight, well, then, we will not both leave alive."You are only alive now because you said 'to the pain.' I want that phrase explained."My pleasure. To the pain means this: if we duel and you win, death for me. If we duel and I win, life for you. But life on my terms. The first thing you lose will be your feet. Below the ankle. You will have stumps available to use within six months. Then your hands, at the wrists. They heal somewhat quicker. Five months is a fair average. Next your nose. No smell of dawn for you. Followed by your tongue. Deeply cut away. Not even a stump left. And then your left eye_"And then my right eye, and then my ears, and shall we get on with it?" the Prince said.Wrong!" Westley__ voice rang across the room. "Your ears you keep, so that every shriek of every child shall be yours to cherish__very babe that weeps in fear at your approach, every woman that cries 'Dear God, what is that thing?' will reverberate forever with your perfect ears. That is what 'to the pain' means. It means that I leave you in anguish, in humiliation, in freakish misery until you can stand it no more; so there you have it, pig, there you know, you miserable vomitous mass, and I say this now, and live or die, it__ up to you: Drop your sword!"The sword crashed to the floor.

Buttercup's mother whirled on him. 'Did you forget to pay your taxes?' (This was after taxes. But everything is after taxes. Taxes were here even before 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.

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.

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?

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.)