Book: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
Description: Domingo Montoya, Inigo’s father, explains to his friend, a fellow sword-maker, why he refuses to help him out by making a sword for some Italian noble.
Domingo: Why? My fat friend asks me why? He sits there on his world-class ass and has the nerve to ask me why? Yeste. Come to me sometime with a challenge. Once, just once, ride up and say, “Domingo, I need a sword for an eighty-year-old man to fight a duel,” and I would embrace you and cry, “Yes!” Because to make a sword for an eighty-year-old man to survive a duel, that would be something. Because the sword would have to be strong enough to win, yet light enough not to tire his weary arm. I would have to use my all to perhaps find an unknown metal, strong but very light, or devise a different formula for a known one, mix some bronze with some iron and some air in a way ignored for a thousand years. I would kiss your smelly feet for an opportunity like that, fat Yeste. But to make a stupid sword with stupid jewels in the form of stupid initials so some stupid Italian can thrill his stupid mistress, no. That, I will not do.