Criticism can never instruct or benefit you. Its chief effect is that of a telegram with dubious news. Praise leaves no glow behind, for it is a writer’s habit to remember nothing good of himself.
BEN HECHTLike 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.
More Ben Hecht Quotes
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The producer, director and stars are the geniuses who get the hosannas when it’s a hit. Theirs are also the heads that are mounted on spears when it’s a flop.
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Love is a hole in the heart.
BEN HECHT -
Three 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 HECHT -
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.
BEN HECHT -
Of the things men give each other the greatest is loyalty.
BEN HECHT -
As an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.
BEN HECHT -
A man nearly always loves for other reasons than he thinks. A lover is apt to be as full of secrets from himself as is the object of his love from him.
BEN HECHT -
I’m a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain.
BEN HECHT -
I 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 HECHT -
The movies are an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming cultured people.
BEN HECHT -
Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you’re in over your head.
BEN HECHT -
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 -
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.
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A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.
BEN HECHT -
Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing.
BEN HECHT