Immorality, perversion, infidelity, cannibalism, etc., are unassailable by church and civic league if you dress them up in the togas and talliths of the Good Book.
BEN HECHTImmorality, perversion, infidelity, cannibalism, etc., are unassailable by church and civic league if you dress them up in the togas and talliths of the Good Book.
BEN HECHTI’ll tell you a secret. We live in a mad and inspiring world.
BEN HECHTThree years ago, the white hope of the theatre. Today, a mug. That’s New York for you. Puts you on a Christmas tree, and then – the alley.
BEN HECHTTrying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
BEN HECHTThe movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century.Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them.
BEN HECHTBad writing is not easier than good writing. It’s just as hard to make a toilet seat as it is a castle window. Only the view is different.
BEN HECHTI see a lot of fog and a few lights. I like it when life’s hidden. It gives you a chance to imagine nice things, nicer than they are.
BEN HECHTPeople’s sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.
BEN HECHTThe movies are an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming cultured people.
BEN HECHTInnocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you’re in over your head.
BEN HECHTOut of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland there are scarcely fifty men and women of wit or talent.
BEN HECHTThat God has managed to survive the inanities of the religions that do Him homage is truly a miraculous proof of His existence.
BEN HECHTWhen you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance.
BEN HECHTThey’re a symbol of the whole town, pretending to fight, love, weep and laugh all the time – and they’re phonies, all of them. And I head the list…their phony hearts were dripping with the milk of human kindness.
BEN HECHTAs an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.
BEN HECHTFor many years Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.
BEN HECHT