The winner of two Academy Awards — one for Best Original Screenplay and the other for Best Adapted Screen play — for his work on "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" and "All The President's Men", along with publishing 16 novels which included "The Marathon Man" and the much beloved "The Princess Bride", there is much to be said in regards to praise concerning the prolific career, and life of William Goldman.
Described as one of the late 20th Century's most popular, if not greatest, storytellers, Goldman's works and style are often cited by authors and screenwriters alike as a golden standard of cinematic and literary craft with three of his movie scripts being voted into The Writers Guild of America hall-of-fame's 101 Greatest Screenplays. Consulted as a script doctor for renowned films such as "Goodfellas" and "Good Will Hunting", here are five of the best lines delivered delivered by a tongue as eloquent as the mind that first conceived of them. First as words. Then as a story told by one who forever remains a lasting epitome of cinematic lore:
1. "True love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops."
Love is sweet, though there are many things that may seem sweeter. Especially when you become sick of it. Or just sick.
2. "Life isn't fair, it's just fairer than death, that's all."
In life, only few things are fair because there is much that is not. And much that is not fair so even fewer things can be.
3. "Cynics are simply thwarted romantics."
Those who profess to not believe in love, or to have never been in it, are those who long to be. As much as they want to believe. They've just been spurned for the faith too many times.
4. "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
A life of convenience is just a brochure -- beautifully decorated and eloquently worded. But no amount of balloons or fairytales will ever be enough to spare us of the hurt that comes with being alive. After all, we enter this world crying.
5. "Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high."
It is often the most beautiful things which allows those around us to perceive us as such that remain hidden. When we aspire to what we believe is beautiful. A belief that withers and crumbles. Leaving behind nothing to call it such.
Although Goldman no longer remains to inspire from us a love that was the very inspiration of his movies and books -- a love that was very much love itself -- on the shelves of books, movie stores, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu they remain. To remind us that while life is hardly as fair as many of the things we will encounter while living in it, there is much that is fair, beautiful, and lovely that awaits. For us to fall in love with all that is fair and beautiful.
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