They’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 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.
More Ben Hecht Quotes
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A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.
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Out of the seventy movies I’ve written some ten of them were not entirely waste product.
BEN HECHT -
A wise man will always allow a fool to rob him of ideas without yelling “Thief.” If he is wise he has not been impoverished. Nor has the fool been enriched. The thief flatters us by stealing. We flatter him by complaining.
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Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.
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For 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.
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In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.
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Like the actor, authority has faith in its false whiskers. But its deepest faith is in the human illusion. People will hang on to illusion as eagerly as life itself.
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The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can’t have both.
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Bad 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.
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Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing.
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I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.
BEN HECHT -
I’m a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain.
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I discovered early in my movie work that a movies never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. There are times when this distinction may be given to the writer or director. Most often it belongs to the producer.
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Writing a good movie brings a writer about as much fame as steering a bicycle. It gets him, however, more jobs. If his movie is bad it will attract only critical tut-tut for him.
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I have usually forgotten those who have admired my work, and seldom anyone who disliked it. Obviously, this is because praise is never enough and censure always too much.
BEN HECHT