Socially, a journalist ranks somewhere between the madam of a whorehouse and a bartender. but spiritually he ranks with Galileo, for he knows the world is round.
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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In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.
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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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A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.
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Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you’re in over your head.
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As an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.
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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Love is a hole in the heart.
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Television excites me because it seems to be the last stamping ground of poetry, the last place where I hear women’s hair rhapsodically described, women’s faces acclaimed in odelike language.
BEN HECHT -
Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.
BEN HECHT -
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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Out of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland there are scarcely fifty men and women of wit or talent.
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The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.
BEN HECHT -
H.L.Mencken’s war aims, according to the handful of observers who deigned to notice his conflict, were the overthrow of American Democracy, the Christian religion, and the YMCA. He was also credited with trying to wipe out poets and luncheon orators.
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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 -
Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos.
BEN HECHT