"I want to understand everything," said Miro. "I want to know everything and put it all together to see what it means." "Excellent project," she said. "It will look very good on your resume."

"[They] knew each other so well that there was often nothing to say. But without her there, [he] grew impatient with his own thoughts; they never came to a point, because there was no one to tell them to."

"I carry the seeds of death with me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love. My parents died so others could live; now I live, so others must die."

"Are you ready to reveal yourself to the rest of humanity?" "I’ve always been ready. The question is, are they ready to know me?"

"If you really believed that someone was perfect in heart... So righteous that to live another day could only cause them to be less perfect, then wouldn't it be a good thing for them if they were killed and taken directly into heaven?"

"These people came for entertainment, but they're your targets; you will pierce them to the hearts."

"He is dangerous, the infidel, the anti-Christ, he walks brazenly into places in my heart that I had kept as holy ground, where no one else was ever permitted to stand."

"I knew her so well that I loved her, or maybe I loved her so well that I knew her."

"I think you can’t possibly know the truth about somebody unless you love them."

"He was telling the truth, the story you wouldn't think to doubt because it’s taken for granted."

"You don’t know how much pain it will cause if all the secrets come out." "Take a look at my family. How can the truth cause any more pain than the secrets have already caused?"

"He loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest sorrow."

"A question isn't an argument, unless you think you know my answer."

"There are worse reasons to die, than to die because you cannot bear to kill." "What about someone who can’t kill, and can’t die, and can’t live, either?" "Don’t deceive yourself. You’ll do all three someday."

"As long as you keep getting born, it’s okay to die sometimes."

"Once you know what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart."

"I’m not one to despise other people for their sins. I haven’t found one yet, that I didn’t say to myself, I’ve done worse than this."

"It’s the dream of every living creature. The desire that is the very root of life itself: to grow until all the space you can see is part of you, under your control. It’s the desire for greatness. There are two ways, though, to fulfill it. One way is to kill anything that is not yourself, to swallow it up or destroy it, until nothing is left to oppose you. But that way is evil. You say to all the universe, Only I will be great, and to make room for me the rest of you must give up even what you already have, and become nothing."

"If people only react to the way that others treat them, then nobody is responsible for anything. If your sins are not your own to choose, then how can you repent?"

"There’s so much that we don’t understand. And so much more that you don’t understand. We should tell each other more."

"I speak to everyone in the language they understand. That isn’t being slick. It’s being clear."

"It wasn’t a matter of confession, penance, and absolution, like the priests offered. It was something else entirely. Telling the story of who she was, and then realizing that she was no longer the same person. That she had made a mistake, and the mistake had changed her, now she had become someone else, someone less afraid, someone more compassionate."

"Ignorance and deception can’t save anybody. Knowing saves them."

"My, but I miss the days when we never talked to each other for weeks at a time."

"Don’t ever try to teach me about good and evil. I've been there; you’ve seen nothing but the map."

"Marriage is not a covenant between a man and a woman; even the beasts cleave together and produce their young. Marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman on one side and their community on the other."

"His eyes were seductive with understanding."

"Anthropology is never an exact science; the observer never experiences the same culture as the participant."

"You are the one human being who is capable of understanding the alien mind, because you are the alien mind; you know what it is to be unhuman because there’s never been any human group that gave you credentials as a bona fide homo sapien."

"I understood that she didn’t want to be liked. As if she were a visitor who expected to go back home any day."

"The best parts of my intellectual life are tangential, in areas outside my expertise. I supposed because within my area of expertise, the regulations they have placed upon me make it impossible to know or understand anything."

"Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation. So, of course, we killed him."

"No human being, when you understand his desires, is worthless. No one's life is nothing. Even the most evil of men and women, if you understand their hearts, had some generous act that redeems them, at least a little, from their sins."

"This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question."

"The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and therefore should be treated with great caution."

"Anyway, here's the "good parts" version. S. Morgenstern wrote it. And my father read it to me. And now I give it to you. What you do with it will be of more than passing interest to us all."

"Doomed, madam?" "To be together. Until one of us dies." "I've done that already, and I haven't the slightest intention of ever doing it again." Westley said. Buttercup looked at him. "Don't we sort of have to sometime?" "Not if we promise to outlive each other, and I make that promise now." Buttercup looked at him. "Oh my Westley, so do I."

""I’m going to tell you something once and then whether you die is strictly up to you," Westley said, lying pleasantly on the bed. "What I’m going to tell you is this: drop your sword, and if you do, then I will leave with this baggage here"—he glanced at Buttercup—"and you will be tied up but not fatally, and will be free to go about your business. And if you choose to fight, well, then, we will not both leave alive." "You are only alive now because you said 'to the pain.' I want that phrase explained." "My pleasure. To the pain means this: if we duel and you win, death for me. If we duel and I win, life for you. But life on my terms. The first thing you lose will be your feet. Below the ankle. You will have stumps available to use within six months. Then your hands, at the wrists. They heal somewhat quicker. Five months is a fair average. Next your nose. No smell of dawn for you. Followed by your tongue. Deeply cut away. Not even a stump left. And then your left eye—" "And then my right eye, and then my ears, and shall we get on with it?" the Prince said. "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; so there you have it, pig, there you know, you miserable vomitous mass, and I say this now, and live or die, it’s up to you: Drop your sword!" The sword crashed to the floor."

"Prince Humperdinck dove for his weapons, and a sword flashed in his thick hands. "To the death," he said, advancing. Westley gave a soft shake of his head. "No," he corrected. "To the pain." It was an odd phrase, and for the moment it brought the Prince up short. "I don’t think I quite understand that.""

"Hello," he said. "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

"You see," Max explained as he pumped, "there's different kinds of dead: there's sort of dead, mostly dead, and all dead. This fella here, he's only sort of dead, which means there's still a memory inside, there's still bits of brain. You apply a little pressure here, a little more there, sometimes you get results."

"But Westley, as the lever moved, took his brain away, and when the Machine began, Westley was stroking her autumn-coloured hair and touching her skin of wintry cream and - and - and then his world exploded... In humiliation, and suffering, and frustration, and anger, and anguish so great it was dizzying, Westley cried like a baby. "Interesting," said the Count, and carefully noted it down."

"It comes to this," Buttercup began. "In the Fire Swamp I made the worst mistake in all the world. I love Westley. I always have. It seems I always will...I mean this now too: if you say I must marry you in fifty days I will be dead by morning."

""Fool!" cried the hunchback. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.'" He was quite cheery until the iocane powder took effect."

"The battle of wits has begun," said the man in black. "It ends when you decide and we drink and find out who is right and who is dead."

"While he was watching the ships, Buttercup shoved him with all her strength remaining...down went the man in black..." And you can die too for all I care!" she said, and then she turned away. Words followed her. Whispered from afar, weak and warm and familiar. "As...you...wish...""

"I loved once," Buttercup said after a moment. "It worked out badly." "Another rich man? Yes, and he left you for a richer woman." "No. Poor. Poor and it killed him." "Were you sorry? Did you feel pain? Admit that you felt nothing -" "You mock my pain! I died that day."

""The Prince and I have never from the beginning lied to each other. He knows I do not love him." "Are not capable of love is what you mean." "I'm very capable of love," Buttercup said. "Hold your tongue, I think." "I have loved more deeply than a killer like you can possibly imagine." He slapped her."

"[Princess Buttercup is walking among her people for the first time.]"

"But from a narrative point of view, in 105 pages nothing happens. Except this: 'What with one thing and another, three years passed."