Literary Birthday – 12 August – William Goldman

William Goldman was born on 12 August 1931 and died on 16 November 2018.

William Goldman Quotes

1. One of the easiest things in the world is not to write… If it were easy, everyone would do it.
2. 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—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.
3. The enemy is always in the mind.
4. It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy, even the normal ones are weird.
5. 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.
6. Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life.
7. 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.
8. When I was your age, television was called books.
9. God grant you your quota of smiles.
10. Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!
11. You have to protect your writing time. You have to protect it to the death.
12. 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.
13. Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high.
14. But love is many things, none of them logical.
15. I [don’t] like my writing. I wrote a movie called Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and I wrote a novel called The Princess Bride and those are the only two things I’ve ever written, not that I’m proud of, but that I can look at without humiliation.
16. I don’t guess. I think. I ponder. I deduce. Then I decide. But I never guess.
17. I write out of revenge.

William Goldman was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter known for his versatility and sharp, witty dialogue. During a career that spanned seven decades, he wrote 16 novels and numerous screenplays, moving easily between comedy, drama, romance, and adventure. His best-known books include Marathon Man and The Princess Bride, both of which he adapted for the screen. He also won two Academy Awards for his screenplays Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men. Goldman later turned his attention to his experiences in Hollywood. His first memoir, Adventures in the Screen Trade: A Personal View of Hollywood and Screenwriting, offered an entertaining and often candid look at the film industry and the craft of screenwriting. He followed it with Which Lie Did I Tell?, and a collection of his essays, The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays. Among his many honours were three Writers Guild of America Awards, including the 1985 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, two Edgar Awards for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, and a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

Read William Goldman’s 10 Commandments On Writing

Source for quotes
Source for image: Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson
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