William Goldman

Author profile

born

August 12, 1931 in Highland Park, Illinois, The United States

gender

male

genre

Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Screenplays & Plays

influences

Irwin Shaw, Ingmar Bergman, Ross Macdonald

About this author

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Goldman grew up in a Jewish family in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and obtained a BA degree at Oberlin College in 1952 and an MA degree at Columbia University in 1956.
William Goldman had published five novels and had three plays produced on Broadway before he began to write screenplays. Several of his novels he later used as the foundation for his screenplays. In the 1980s he wrote a series of memoirs looking at his professional life on Broadway and in Hollywood (in one of these he famously remarked that "Nobody knows anything"). He then returned to writing novels. He then adapted his novel The Princess Bride to the screen, which marked his re-entry into screenwriting.
Goldman has won two Academy Awards: an Academy Award for W...more

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Books by William Goldman

Average rating: 4.19 · 240,985 ratings · 6,842 reviews · 31 distinct works

	The Princess Bride 4.20 avg rating — 233,565 ratings — published 1973 — 74 editions	My rating:
	Marathon Man 4.00 avg rating — 2,433 ratings — published 1974 — 14 editions	My rating:
	Adventures in the Screen Trade 4.14 avg rating — 1,175 ratings — published 1983 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade 3.89 avg rating — 693 ratings — published 2000 — 6 editions	My rating:
	The Silent Gondoliers by William Goldman, S. Morgenstern (As Told by) 3.72 avg rating — 588 ratings — published 1983 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Magic 3.53 avg rating — 405 ratings — published 1976 — 9 editions	My rating:
	Boys and Girls Together 3.77 avg rating — 293 ratings — published 1964 — 10 editions	My rating:
	The Temple of Gold 3.92 avg rating — 244 ratings — published 1976 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Colour of Light 3.84 avg rating — 183 ratings — 5 editions	My rating:
	Brothers 3.55 avg rating — 181 ratings — published 1985 — 5 editions	My rating:

More books by William Goldman…

Series by William Goldman

Babe Levy (2 books)
by William Goldman

3.97 avg rating — 2,614 ratings

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Quotes by William Goldman

“Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure: The "Good Parts" Version, Abridged

tags: life , pain

2,363 people liked it

“Just because you're beautiful and perfect, it's made you conceited.”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

tags: absurd , beauty , conceit , humor , love

1,123 people liked it

“When I was your age, television was called books.”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

tags: book , fantasy , humour

833 people liked it

See all William Goldman's quotes »

Polls

What should we read in November?

(The Demon King) by Cinda Williams Chima

4 votes 66.7%

(The Princess Bride) by William Goldman

2 votes 33.3%

(Pillar of Fire) by Judith Tarr

0 votes 0.0%

6 total votes

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Love2Read: October's Nominations	11	10	Oct 13, 2008 05:15pm
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