Al-Dahḥāk ibn ʿUthmān al-Ḥizāmī said: Hishām wanted to depose al-Walīd, so al-Walīd recited:
You have denied the hand of a benefactor—had you shown gratitude,
The All-Merciful, Lord of bounty and grace, would have rewarded you for it.
I see you striving, intent on cutting me off;
Had you possessed real resolve you would have razed what you now erect.
You are harvesting rancour against those who survive;
Alas for them, should you die, for the evil you are storing up.
I can almost see them one day, and most of what they will be saying is:
‘If only we had…’—but “if only” will avail them nothing.

Ḥammād al-Rāwiyah said: I was with al-Walīd ibn Yazīd when two astrologers told him, “We have examined the stars and found that you will rule for seven years.”
I said, “They have lied; we are better informed by the transmitted reports—you will rule for forty years.”
He lowered his head and then said, “What they have said will not break me, nor will what you have said deceive me. By Allah, I shall collect wealth from its lawful sources as one who expects to live forever, and I shall spend it in its rightful places as one who may die tomorrow.”

Al-ʿUtbi relates that al-Walīd once saw a Christian woman named Safrāʾ, became infatuated with her, and wrote to her, but she refused him.

Muʿāfā said: I have compiled reports about al-Walīd and the poetry in which he expressed his debauchery, outrageousness, frivolity and stupidity, together with the impiety he voiced against the Quran and his disbelief in Allah.

Aḥmad ibn Zuhayr reported: Sulaymān ibn Abī Shaykh narrated to us, from Ṣāliḥ ibn Sulaymān, who said:
Al-Walīd ibn Yazīd intended to perform the pilgrimage and declared, “I shall drink (wine) on top of the Kaʿbah.”
A group of people resolved to kill him, and Khālid al-Qaṣrī warned him. He asked, “From whom?”
Khālid refused to name them, so al-Walīd said, “I will send you to Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar.”
Khālid replied, “Even so.”
Al-Walīd sent him, and Yūsuf tortured and killed him.

Musʿab al-Zubayrī, on the authority of his father, said: I was in the company of al-Mahdī when al-Walīd ibn Yazīd was mentioned. A man remarked, “He was a zindiq (heretic).”
Al-Mahdī replied, “Enough! Allah’s caliphate is far too exalted for Him to bestow it upon a heretic.”

Al-Walīd ibn Hishām al-Qaḥḍamī narrated from his father:
When they surrounded al-Walīd, he unfurled