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.
BEN HECHTChicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos.
More Ben Hecht Quotes
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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.
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There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age.
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That God has managed to survive the inanities of the religions that do Him homage is truly a miraculous proof of His existence.
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I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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Movies are one of the bad habits that have corrupted our century. They have slipped into the American mind more misinformation in one evening than the Dark Ages could muster in a decade.
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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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There’s one thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die – their silence.
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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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As an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.
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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Love is a hole in the heart.
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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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The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.
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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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I’m a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain.
BEN HECHT -
He was in love with life as an ant on a summer blade of grass.
BEN HECHT -
The movies are an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming cultured people.
BEN HECHT -
Love is the magician that pulls him out of his own hat.
BEN HECHT -
In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.
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Trying 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.
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Of the things men give each other the greatest is loyalty.
BEN HECHT