We’ve been playing along with an overwhelmed Absence of Alternatives, who bid us post Prince Humperdink’s quote on having too much to do.

The film version is:
“I’ve got my country’s five hundredth anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped.”

The book version is:
“I can’t keep my head above water one minute to the next: it’s not just the parties and the goo-gooing with what’s-her-name, I’ve got to decide how long the Five Hundredth Anniversary Parade is going to be and where does it start and when does it start and which nobleman gets to march in front of which other nobleman so that everyone’s still speaking to me at the end of it, plus I’ve got a wife to murder and a country to frame for it, plus I’ve got to get the war going once that’s all happened, and all this is stuff I’ve got to do myself. Here’s what it all comes down to: I’m just swamped, Ty.”

Some of you have added lovely quotes to the list of favorites. Somewhat like Top Gun, The Princess Bride‘s a film rich with quotable moments (that is watched often enough that people can quote and recognize it easily.)

So now I’ll ignore obligations to write another Princess Bride post. Because I suck at priorities. Because I like not thinking much. And because I’m a whore for movie and book quotes. Why think my own thoughts when someone else’s are so clever?

In my previous post I listed as a favorite, “It’s possible, Pig, I might be bluffing. It’s conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I’m only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again… perhaps I have the strength after all. Drop. Your. Sword.”

Here are the rest in my top ten:

“Let me ‘splain. No there is too much. Let me sum up.”

“Wrong!” Westley’s voice rang across the room. “Your ears you keep, so that every shriek of every child shall be yours to cherish—every 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”

“No more rhymes now, I mean it. Anybody want a peanut?”

“When I was your age, television was called books.”

“Murdered by pirates is good.”

“And that’s when she put her book down. And looked at me. And said it: “Life isn’t fair, Bill. We tell our children that it is, but it’s a terrible thing to do. It’s not only a lie, it’s a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it never has been, and it’s never going to be.”

“The beef-witted featherbrained rattledskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed BOYS.”

“It was only when the giant got halfway down the incline that he suddenly, happily, burst into flame and continued his trip saying, ‘NO SURVIVORS, NO SURVIVORS!’ in a manner that could only indicate deadly sincerity.

It was seeing him happily burning and advancing that startled the Brute Squad to screaming. And once that happened, why, everybody panicked and ran…”

“He had written to her just before he sailed for America. 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.)”

and my favorite of all…

“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, that Demon being 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.”

I know. It’s not funny or cute or Princess Bride-ish at all. But I goddamned love writing quotes.