In Hollywood a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
BEN HECHTIn Hollywood a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
BEN HECHTI 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 HECHTI have written a raucous valentine to a poet’s dream and agony.
BEN HECHTTelevision 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 HECHTI 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 HECHTLove is the magician that pulls him out of his own hat.
BEN HECHTOf the things men give each other the greatest is loyalty.
BEN HECHTInnocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you’re in over your head.
BEN HECHTI haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops.
BEN HECHTLove is a hole in the heart.
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 HECHTI have known a number of Don Juans who were good studs and who cavorted between the sheets without a psychiatrist to guide them. But most of the busy love-makers I knew were looking for masculinity rather than practicing it. They were fellows of dubious lust.
BEN HECHTPeople’s sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.
BEN HECHTWriting 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.
BEN HECHTThe rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can’t have both.
BEN HECHTIn moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.
BEN HECHT