Quotes from The Lion in Winter

“I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“Give me a little peace.
A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace? Now, there's a thought.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“He came down from the North to Paris with a mind like Aristotle's and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“I've given up the looking glass; quicksilver has no sense of tact.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“Geoffrey: Why, you chivalric fool—as if the way one fell down mattered.

Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“I've snapped and plotted all my life. There's no other way to be a king, alive and fifty all at the same time. ”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“John: "Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!"

Richard: "Let's strike a flint and see.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“Well, what family doesn't have its ups and downs?”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“I want Poetry and Power and the young men who create it.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

“I've plotted and schemed all my life. There is no other way to be a King, fifty and alive all at once.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter

About the author

Popular quotes

“If the barons live at war, ploughfolk must eat roots.” “Nay,”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, quote from The Black Arrow

“In retrospect, I'm embarrassed by how little effort on his part it took for me to come back or stay. I was so desperate for him to love me, to want me, to fight for me that I was literally grateful for any mere scrap of effort. I'd made so many excuses for his inability to treat me well that even the smallest gesture was amplified in my head. After years of this, I finally got my head out of my ass and realized that aside from feeling insecure and fragile about the state of my relationship all the time, we also wanted entirely different things out of life!”
― Greg Behrendt, quote from It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy

“Tus hijas están y viven como metidas en alacenas. Pero ni tú ni nadie puede vigilar por el interior de los pechos. BERNARDA.”
― Federico García Lorca, quote from La casa de Bernarda Alba

“She couldn't take her eyes off the boxers. Mostly, she had a view of the back, but he turned halfway when he looked over. She commanded herself not to look at the front flap, which, of course, was exactly what she honed in on.
He spit and put his mouth under the tap to get some water. All while just wearing underwear. All while she just stared at the crucial spot of the Action Pants.”
― Maureen Johnson, quote from The Last Little Blue Envelope

“It doesn't matter if people are playing jazz or writing poetry -- if they want to be successful, they need to learn how to persist and persevere, how to keep on working until the work is done. Woody Allen famously declared that "eighty percent of success is showing up." NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) teaches kids how to show up again and again.”
― Jonah Lehrer, quote from Imagine: How Creativity Works

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.