“What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“I don't know that you'll understand this, but once upon a time, long ago, I was a scholar and a marathon man, but that fella's gone now, dead I suppose, but I remember something he thought, which was that if you don't learn the mistakes of the past, you'll be doomed to repeat them. Well we've been making a mistake with people like you, because public trials are bullshit and executions are games for winners - all this time we should have been giving back pain. That's the real lesson. That's the loser's share, just pain, pure and simple, pain and torture, no hotshot lawyers running around trying to see that justice is done. I think we'd have a nice peaceful place here if all you warmakers knew you better not start something because if you lost, agony was just around the bend. That's what I'd like to give you. Agony. Not what you're suffering now. I mean a lifetime of it, 'cause that's the only degree of justice I think we're ready for down here yet, and I know any humanist might disagree with me too, but I don't think you will, because you had a lot to do with educating me, I'm like you now, except I'm better at it, because you're going to die and I've still got a long way to go.”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“Groin' is a funny word," Babe said quietly. "I don't know the German for it, but I'm sure you do." He began to talk more quickly then, because he could tell Szell was starting to die. "Oh, maybe you didn't see it in the papers, but they've made this fabulous theological discovery, do you know what they've found? People don't go to heaven or hell, they all go to one spot first, sort of a way station, and that's were things happen, because, you probably won't believe this, but some people on this earth have been known to do bad things to other people, innocent people, and at this way station, the innocent people wait, and then when their savager comes, they get to exact a little portion of revenge. God says revenge is good for the soul. Do you know who's waiting for you, Mr. Szell? All the Jews. They're all there, and you know what else? They've all got drills, like you used on me - remember how you said how wonderful it was, anyone could learn that, how to use them? Well, they have and they're waiting, and I don't know about you, but I think it's gonna be terrific."
Szell was almost dead now, but Babe just had time to get it in.
Have a swell eternity," Babe said...”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“he looked as much like Karl as Cuddles Sakall resembled Argentina Rocca.”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“The main thing was to know the world, every twenty-five years or so, back for a couple hundred years, and if you had that info handy, always there under your belt, then you could figure out the gaps.”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“If you write movies, you never know who the enemy is. Someone is going to fuck you, that’s a given.”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“For the pedant, dates are deities, worthy of worship, but for the true social historian, they are minutiae only, a shorthand, convenient reminders and no more. You do not ask a Titanic survivor, ‘Let me see now, just exactly when was that?’ You ask him this: ‘What was it like? How did you feel?’ And that is the job of the social historian: to make the past vibrant for the present; to emotionally involve those of us who were not there. And to make us understand.”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
“any experience is profitable if you allow it to be, all actions are profitable, no matter how badly you may suffer from them.”
― William Goldman, quote from Marathon Man
William Goldman
Born place: in Highland Park, Illinois, The United States
Born date August 12, 1931
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“Mas, logo ao outro dia, seus parceiros,
Todos nus e da cor da escura treva,
Decendo pelos ásperos outeiros,
As peças vem buscar que estoutro leva.
Domésticos já tanto e companheiros
Se nos mostram, que fazem que se atreva
Fernão Veloso a ir ver da terra o trato
E partir-se co eles pelo mato.
É Veloso no braço confiado
E, de arrogante, crê que vai seguro;
Mas, sendo um grande espaço já passado,
Em que algum bom sinal saber procuro,
Estando, a vista alçada, co cuidado
No aventureiro, eis pelo monte duro
Aparece e, segundo ao mar caminha,
Mais apressado do que fora, vinha.
O batel de Coelho foi depressa
Polo tomar; mas, antes que chegasse,
Um Etíope ousado se arremessa
A ele, por que não se lhe escapasse.
Outro e outro lhe saem; vê-se em presa
Veloso, sem que alguém lhe ali ajudasse,
Acudo eu logo, e, enquanto o remo aperto
Se mostra um bando negro descoberto.
Da espessa nuvem setas e pedradas
Chovem sobre nós outros, sem medida,
E não foram ao vento em vão deitadas,
Que esta perna trouxe eu dali ferida;
Mas nós, como pessoas magoadas,
A reposta lhe demos tão tecida,
Que em mais que nos barretes se suspeita
Que a cor vermelha levam desta feita.
E, sendo já Veloso em salvamento,
Logo nos recolhemos pera a armada,
Vendo a malícia feia e rudo intento
Da gente bestial, bruta e malvada,
De quem nenhum milhor conhecimento
Pudemos ter da Índia desejada
Que estarmos inda muito longe dela.
E assi tornei a dar ao vento a vela.
Disse então a Veloso um companheiro
(Começando-se todos a sorrir):
"Oula, Veloso amigo, aquele outeiro
É milhor de decer que de subir.”
― Luís de Camões, quote from The Lusiads
“There is a small monster in my brain that controls my doubt.
The doubt itself is a stupid thing, without sense or feeling, blind and straining at the end of a long chain. The monster though, is smart. It's always watching, and when I am cmpletely sure of myself, it unchains the doubt and lets it run wild. even when I know it's coming, I can't stop it.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“sat alone until Peterson stuck his head in the hallway and called for him. He took the borrowed Highway Patrol”
― Lee Child, quote from 61 Hours
“They live beyond the quick ghetto. In hovels. In the shantytown.' He smiled. 'And every night, after the sun's descended, they can crawl safely out from their shacks and shuffle into the town. Stick-figures in rags, leaning against the walls. Exhausted and starving, hands outstretched. Begging.' His voice was soft and vicious. 'Begging for the quick to take pity on them. And every so often one of us will acquiesce, and out of pity and contempt, embarrassed by our soft philanthropy, we'll stand in the eaves of a building and offer up our wrists. And you and your kind will open them, all frantic with hunger and fawning with gratitude, and take a few eager swigs, till we decide you've had enough and take back our hands while you weep and beg for more, and maybe spew because you've gone without a hit so long your stomach can't handle what it craves, and we leave you lying in the dirt, blissed by your little fix.”
― China Miéville, quote from The Scar
“Nathan smoothly touched the bottom with a palm. His shirt and shoes were off. When his head and chest rose out of the water, I was in awe of the muscles that were defined in his body. Unlike Silas whose bulk of muscle was smooth, Nathan was a precision machine. The ripples of muscles along his abdomen fit together like a living puzzle. A smile broke on his lips as those penetrating blue eyes fixed on my face. “Did you find out?”
― C.L. Stone, quote from Introductions
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