THE PRINCESS BRIDE
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S. Morgenstern's
Classic Tale of True Love
and High Adventure

The 'good parts' version abridged by
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WILLIAM GOLDMAN
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map

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For Hiram Haydn

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THE PRINCESS BRIDE
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This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

How is such a thing possible? I'll do my best to explain. As a child, I
had simply no interest in books. I hated reading, I was very bad at it,
and besides, how could you take the time to read when there were games
that shrieked for playing? Basketball, baseball, marbles--I could never
get enough. I wasn't even good at them, but give me a football and an
empty playground and I could invent last-second triumphs that would
bring tears to your eyes. School was torture. Miss Roginski, who was my
teacher for the third through fifth grades, would have meeting after
meeting with my mother. "I don't feel Billy is perhaps extending himself
quite as much as he might." Or, "When we test him, Billy does really
exceptionally well, considering his class standing." Or, most often, "I
don't know, Mrs. Goldman; what are we going to do about Billy?"

What are we going to do about Billy? That was the phrase that haunted me
those first ten years. I pretended not to care, but secretly I was
petrified. Everyone and everything was passing me by. I had no real
friends, no single person who shared an equal interest in all games. I
seemed busy, busy, busy, but I suppose, if pressed, I might have
admitted that, for all my frenzy, I was very much alone.

"What are we going to do about you, Billy?"

"I don't know, Miss Roginski."

"How could you have failed this reading test? I've heard you use every
word with my own ears."

"I'm sorry, Miss Roginski. I must not have been thinking."

"You're always thinking, Billy. You just weren't thinking about the
reading test."

I could only nod.

"What was it this time?"

"I don't know. I can't remember."

"Was it Stanley Hack again?" (Stan Hack was the Cubs' third baseman for
these and many other years. I saw him play once from a bleacher seat,
and even at that distance he had the sweetest smile I had ever seen and
to this day I swear he smiled at me several times. I just worshipped
him. He could also hit a ton. )

"Bronko Nagurski. He's a football player. A great football player, and
the paper last night said he might come back and play for the Bears
again. He retired when I was little but if he came back and I could get
someone to take me to a game, I could see him play and maybe if whoever
took me also knew him, I could meet him after and maybe if he was
hungry, I might let him have a sandwich I might have brought with me. I
was t...

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