Couldn't let this week go by without reference to the passing of one of Hollywood's greatest screenwriters: William Goldman.

If you're a fan of the moving pictures, you don't need me to tell you just how influential Goldman was.

His output spanned half a century and I pretty much guarantee that even if you didn't get to see the results of his work first hand, the titles of the films that listed his name in the end credits or, more often than not, as the opening titles were rolling across the screen, will be instantly familiar. And there were many instances where he worked as script consultant on some very prominent films without his name appearing on the finished product.

He's also the writer who penned one of the most famous Tinsel Town observations, that in the motion picture industry:

'Nobody knows anything.'

Which is not, incidentally, as Wikipedia states, the first line of his superb book on Hollywood: Adventures in the Screen Trade; at least not in my copy.

All right, if you want to be picky, it's on Page 39...IN CAPITAL LETTERS

Here's just a small collection of the films that bore his signature,

either as principal screenwriter or as a consultant.

Many of the films above not only featured memorable characters that have gone down in movie history but some of the most famous lines, too:

'Think ya used enough dynamite there, Butch?'

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

'My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.'

The Princess Bride

'You can't handle the truth!'

A Few Good Men

'I thought you were good, Paul. But you're not good. You're just an old dirty birdy.'

Misery

And the quote to end all quotes...

'Is it safe?'