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.
BEN HECHTBad 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.
More Ben Hecht Quotes
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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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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.
BEN HECHT -
Love is a hole in the heart.
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The rest of the fraternity is deadwood. Yet, in a curious way, there is not much difference between the product of a good writer and a bad one. They both have to toe the same mark.
BEN HECHT -
The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can’t have both.
BEN HECHT -
In Hollywood a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
BEN HECHT -
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’m a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain.
BEN HECHT -
There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age.
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Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.
BEN HECHT -
He was in love with life as an ant on a summer blade of grass.
BEN HECHT -
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.
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I 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.
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Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.
BEN HECHT







