Top 120 William Peter Blatty Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “Good writing is rhythm.”

— William Peter Blatty

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

— William Peter Blatty

53. “Yes, I think so. A sign of the zodiac. I think Gemini.”

— William Peter Blatty

54. “How many husbands and wives,” Merrin uttered sadly, “must believe they have fallen out of love because their hearts no longer race at the sight of their beloveds.”

— William Peter Blatty

55. “Never was he conscious that his thoughts were prayers; only that the prayers were never answered.”

— William Peter Blatty

56. “What book had this girl read that had enabled her unconscious mind to simulate.”

— William Peter Blatty

57. “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

58. “If instead of just clay I could take all the prettiest things Like a rainbow, Or clouds or the way a bird sings, Maybe then, dearest Mommy, If I put them all together, I could really make a sculpture of you.”

— William Peter Blatty

59. “The child was slender as fleeting hope.”

— William Peter Blatty

60. “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.” Merrin.”

— William Peter Blatty

61. “Have you ever heard of exorcism, Mrs. MacNeil?”

— William Peter Blatty

62. “Al buscar el olvido, trataban de recordar.”

— William Peter Blatty

63. “The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us; but.”

— William Peter Blatty

64. “Like the brief doomed flare of exploding suns that registers dimly on blind men’s eyes, the beginning of the horror passed almost unnoticed;.”

— William Peter Blatty

65. “He thought of death in its infinite groanings, of Aztecs ripping out living hearts and of cancer and three-year-olds buried alive and he wondered whether God was alien and cruel, but then remembered Beethoven and the dappling of things and “Hurrah for Karamazov” and kindness. He.”

— William Peter Blatty

66. “But your daughter doesn’t say she’s a demon; she insists she’s the devil himself...”

— William Peter Blatty

67. “Are you the person in Regan?” asked the psychiatrist. Regan nodded. “Who are you?” “Nowonmai,” she answered gutturally. “That’s your name?” Another nod. “You’re a man?” She said, “Say.” “Did you answer?” “Say.” “If that’s ‘yes,’ nod your head.” Regan nodded. “Are you speaking in a foreign language?” “Say.” “Where do you come from?” “Dog.” “You say that you come from a dog?” “Dogmorfmocion,” Regan replied.”

— William Peter Blatty

68. “He could not bear to search for Christ again in stench and hollow eyes; for the Christ of pus and bleeding excrement, the Christ who could not be. In.”

— William Peter Blatty

69. “Mom, my bed was shaking.”

— William Peter Blatty

70. “One more thing about evolution. They keep saying that it’s chance, all chance, and that it’s simple. Billions of fish kept.”

— William Peter Blatty

71. “An anguished moan escaped from Karras as he bowed his head above the Host. He struck his breast as if it were time and murmured, “Domine, no sum dignus... I am not worthy... say but the word and my soul shall be healed.”

— William Peter Blatty

72. “Out, Himmler! Out of my sight! Go and visit your club-footed daughter! Bring her sauerkraut! Sauerkraut and heroin, Thorndike! She will love it! She will – !”

— William Peter Blatty

73. “Prime Neuron Untriggered? First Decider Undecided?”

— William Peter Blatty

74. “He started his engine and turned on the windshield wipers in time to see a tall old man stepping out of the cab. He paid the driver, then turned and stood motionless under a misty streetlamp’s glow, staring up at a window of the house like a melancholy traveler frozen in time. As.”

— William Peter Blatty

75. “There was a strangeness in the house. Like settling stillness. Weighted dust.”

— William Peter Blatty

76. “Very true, but then a lot of the confessions were voluntary.” “So who would volunteer such things?” “Doubtless people who were mentally disturbed.” “Ah, another reliable source!” “Oh, well, you’re probably right about that too, Lieutenant. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.” “You do it so well.” “Look, one thing that.”

— William Peter Blatty

77. “Bill, the point is that right in the middle of this horror there’s a creature called man who can see that it’s horrible. So where do we come up with these notions like ‘evil’ and ‘cruel’ and ‘unjust’? You can’t say a line looks a little bit crooked unless you’ve got a notion of a line that’s straight.”

— William Peter Blatty

78. “Why you do dis to me, Dimmy?”

— William Peter Blatty

79. “Do you hunger, Saint Merrin? Here, I give you both nectar and ambrosia, I give to you the daily bread of your God!” croaked the demon mockingly as Regan excreted diarrhetically. “For this is my body! Now consecrate that, Saint Merrin!”

— William Peter Blatty

80. “That you ever existed is a thought that gives me shelter; that men could make you up is a thought that gives me hope; and the thought that you might exist even now would give me safety and a gladness that I could not contain.”

— William Peter Blatty

81. “And inwardly raged at this portion of his being that so frequently rendered him helpless in the face of someone’s plea; that he could not control; that lay coiled within him like a length of rope, always ready to fling itself out to rescue at the call of someone else’s need. It gave him no peace. Not even in sleep.”

— William Peter Blatty

82. “No, autosuggestion would explain that, he recalled, as well as reports that, in certain instances, the mentally ill seemed able to unconsciously direct their bodies to emit a variety of odors.”

— William Peter Blatty

83. “Well, what’s wrong?” “I don’t know, Doc, I just can’t describe it! Please come over right away! Come now!”

— William Peter Blatty

84. “And perhaps even Satan – Satan, in spite of himself – somehow serves to work out the will of God.”

— William Peter Blatty

85. “He wondered why love had waited for this distance, waited for the moment when he need not touch, when the limits of contact and human surrender had dwindled to the size of a printed Mass card tucked in his wallet: In Memoriam...”

— William Peter Blatty

86. “Karras glanced at the tape of Regan’s voice, and then wearily sat down at the desk, where he lit another cigarette and blew out a ragged cone of bluish-gray smoke as he thought once again of the.”

— William Peter Blatty

87. “Methylphenidate.”

— William Peter Blatty

88. “It’s all ka-ka, saying mind is really brain. Sure, my hand is in my pocket. Is my pocket my hand? Every wino on M Street knows a thought is a thought and not some cells or chazerei going on in the brain. They know that jealousy is not some kind of game from Atari.”

— William Peter Blatty

89. “He paid the driver, then turned and stood motionless under a misty streetlamp’s glow, staring up at a window of the house like a melancholy traveler frozen in time.”

— William Peter Blatty

90. “That’s right. He was smacking his lips a little, that’s all.” “He was smacking his lips a little?” “Well, yes.” Kinderman.”

— William Peter Blatty

91. “Karl met the eyes that were shifting hardness, that were haggard wells of pain and blame; glimpsed briefly the dissolute bending of the lips and the ravaged face of a youth and a beauty buried alive in a thousand motel rooms, in a thousand awakenings from restless sleep with a stifled cry at remembered grace.”

— William Peter Blatty

92. “Good luck with the world.”

— William Peter Blatty

93. “Karl made a dash across the room, got ahead of Karras and pulled the front door open for him. They exchanged brief glances, and then Karras stepped out into the rainy night.”

— William Peter Blatty

94. “For an instant, Karras throbbed with a surge of rebellion, with a dull, weary anger at the piling on of weight upon weight.”

— William Peter Blatty

95. “For a time, Karras watched him as he listed down the street; watched with fondness and with wonder at the heart’s labyrinthine turnings and improbable redemptions.”

— William Peter Blatty

96. “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 sibilantly hissed and moved her head very slightly back and forth like a cobra.”

— William Peter Blatty

97. “Sharon shook her head. “He’s never come here,” she said. “And besides, he was in Boston that night at some convention.” “He’s a salesman?” asked Kinderman. “A lawyer.”

— William Peter Blatty

98. “Oh, I know you don’t believe in the spirit world, Chris. But I do. And if I’m right, perhaps the bridge between the two worlds is what you yourself just mentioned, the subconscious mind. 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

99. “With an ache, Karras stared at the bowed and defenseless head. He yearned to be able to take Chris’s hand and assure her that all would be well. But he couldn’t. He didn’t believe it.”

— William Peter Blatty

100. “Gust-driven rain spattered back and forth in hesitant indecisive sweeps like a wispy grey soul just arrived on the empty streets of some afterworld, lost and forlorn.”

— William Peter Blatty