Top 120 William Peter Blatty Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us; but he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. His attack is psychological, Damien. And powerful.”

— William Peter Blatty

2. “I just lost ‘Hope,’ that’s all.”

— William Peter Blatty

3. “Peace I leave you. My peace I give you.”

— William Peter Blatty

4. “For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love.”

— William Peter Blatty

5. “Procrastination is what we often call ’resistance.”

— William Peter Blatty

6. “Something unspeakable left the room.”

— William Peter Blatty

7. “But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn’t otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans.”

— William Peter Blatty

8. “Jesus asked the man his name, and he answered, “Legion, for we are many.” Mark 5:9.”

— William Peter Blatty

9. “Would you like to hear a nice definition of jealousy? It’s the feeling that you get when someone you absolutely detest is having a wonderful time without you.”

— William Peter Blatty

10. “They said, “What sign can you give us to see, so that we may believe.” – John 6:30–31 “You do not believe although you have seen.” – John 6:36–37.”

— William Peter Blatty

11. “God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.”

— William Peter Blatty

12. “We mourn the blossoms of May because they are to whither; but we know that May is one day to have its revenge upon November, by the revolution of that solemn circle which never stops – which teaches us in our height of hope, ever to be sober, and in our depth of desolation, never to despair.”

— William Peter Blatty

13. “In forgetting, they were trying to remember.”

— William Peter Blatty

14. “Keep away. The sow is mine.”

— William Peter Blatty

15. “I think the dead should shut up unless there’s something to say.”

— William Peter Blatty

16. “And yet even from this – from evil – there will finally come good in some way; in some way that we may never understand or even see.” Merrin paused. “Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness,” he brooded. “And perhaps even Satan – Satan, in spite of himself – somehow serves to work out the will of God.”

— William Peter Blatty

17. “From these he had fled into love, but now the love had grown cold, and in the night he heard it whistling through the chambers of his heart like a lost and gently crying wind.”

— William Peter Blatty

18. “When the filter is weakened by a powerful drug, what we see is not delusion but the truth.”

— William Peter Blatty

19. “Earth is a homicide victim. We lose our children. There are wars. Disease. And God comes strolling by like a cosmic Billie Burke.”

— William Peter Blatty

20. “I lived in Georgetown in the late 70s about four houses down from the steps.”

— William Peter Blatty

21. “The terror drifted over georgetown like the sun over a blind mans eyes.”

— William Peter Blatty

22. “No, I tend to see possession most often in the little things, Damien: in the senseless, petty spites and misunderstandings; the cruel and cutting word that leaps unbidden to the tongue between friends. Between lovers. Between husbands and wives. Enough of these and we have no need of Satan to manage our wars; these we manage for ourselves.”

— William Peter Blatty

23. “Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men’s eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed; in the shriek of what followed, in fact, was forgotten and perhaps not connected to the horror at all.”

— William Peter Blatty

24. “The Kurd stood waiting like an ancient debt.”

— William Peter Blatty

25. “I’m not saying I’m against evolution. It’s okay. Here’s the story on reptiles, however. Think this over. They come up on.”

— William Peter Blatty

26. “We have every indication that he died of fright.”

— William Peter Blatty

27. “I’m not aware that I was consciously influenced by any director, though these things often happen unnoticed, submerged in the unconscious.”

— William Peter Blatty

28. “Horror does not interest me, and so I know little of its practicioners, old or current.”

— William Peter Blatty

29. “All I know is that things seem to happen. And, my dear, there are lunatic asylums all over the world filled with people who dabbled in the occult.”

— William Peter Blatty

30. “Regan’s pulse was astonishing. It hammered at a speed too rapid to gauge. Across the bed, Merrin reached out calmly and with the end of his thumb traced the sign of the cross on Regan’s vomit-covered chest. The words of his prayer were swallowed up in the poundings.”

— William Peter Blatty

31. “In our sleep, pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. – Aeschylus.”

— William Peter Blatty

32. “I tried to make every bit of it as creepy as I could. And I had the same response you do. I feel the same way. The hospital scenes, that procedure was so real.”

— William Peter Blatty

33. “Your mother’s in here, Karras. Would you like to leave a message? I’ll see that she gets it.”

— William Peter Blatty

34. “Your thoughts are too dull to entertain.”

— William Peter Blatty

35. “I get cassettes near Academy Award time of every movie that’s made that thinks it has some kind of chance for a nomination – that’s when I watch my movies.”

— William Peter Blatty

36. “What looked like morning was the beginning of endless night.”

— William Peter Blatty

37. “And I think – I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial, vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love: of accepting the possibility that God could ever love us.”

— William Peter Blatty

38. “And the sad truth is that nobody wants me to write comedy. The Exorcist not only ended that career, it expunged all memory of its existence.”

— William Peter Blatty

39. “More rooted in logic was the silence of God. In the world there was evil and much of it resulted from doubt, from an honest confusion among men of good will. Would a reasonable God refuse to end it? Not finally reveal Himself? Not speak?”

— William Peter Blatty

40. “It was a green stone head of the demon Pazuzu, personification of the southwest wind.”

— William Peter Blatty

41. “Gliding spiderlike, rapidly, close behind Sharon, her body arched backward in a bow with her head almost touching her feet, was Regan, her tongue flicking quickly in and out of her mouth while she hissed sibilantly like a serpent. Sharon stopped then screamed as she felt Regan’s tongue snaking out at her ankle. That day, everywhere Sharon went, Regan followed.”

— William Peter Blatty

42. “We have familiar experience of the order, the constancy, the perpetual renovation of the material world which surrounds us. Frail and transitory as is every part of it, restless and migratory as are its elements, still it abides. It is bound together by a law of permanence, and though it is ever dying, it is ever coming to life again. Dissolution does but give birth to fresh modes of organization, and one death is the parent of a thousand lives.”

— William Peter Blatty

43. “Henri Bergson thought the principal function of the brain was to filter out most of reality so that we could focus on the tasks of earthly life,” he said. “When the filter is weakened by a powerful drug, what we see is not delusion but the truth.”

— William Peter Blatty

44. “The sun sinks to rise again; the day is swallowed up in the gloom of night, to be born out of it, as fresh as if it had never been quenched.”

— William Peter Blatty

45. “There, you see? I didn’t curse. Don’t you agree that I handled the situation demurely?”

— William Peter Blatty

46. “From the cab stepped a tall old man. Black raincoat and hat and a battered valise. He paid the driver, then turned and stood motionless, staring at the house. The cab pulled away and rounded the corner of Thirty-sixty Street. Kinderman quickly pulled out to follow. As he turned the corner, he noticed that the tall old man hadn’t moved but was standing under the streetlight glow, in mist, like a melancholy traveler frozen in time.”

— William Peter Blatty

47. “But if all of the evil in the world makes you think that there might be a devil, Chris, how do you account for all the good?”

— William Peter Blatty

48. “Good writing is rhythm.”

— William Peter Blatty

49. “Merrin began buttoning up the cassock. “Especially important is the warning to avoid conversations with the demon.” The demon!”

— William Peter Blatty

50. “We use concepts like “consciousness” – “mind” – “personality,” but we don’t really know yet what these things are.′ He was shaking his head. ‘Not really. Not at all.”

— William Peter Blatty