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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.

Ben Hecht

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.
BEN HECHT

Admire Always Dislike Obvious Work
Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing.
BEN HECHT

Art Fall Medicine Writing
There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age.
BEN HECHT

Age Allies Intellectual
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.
BEN HECHT

Art Christianity Conflict War
As an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people.
BEN HECHT

Country Cultured Mind People
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.
BEN HECHT

Age Dark Mind
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

Fake Men People Thinking
Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you’re in over your head.
BEN HECHT

Fate Moving People
I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops.
BEN HECHT

Cities Jail Sleep
In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.
BEN HECHT

Deceit Desire Lying
People’s sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.
BEN HECHT

Opinions People Political Sex
I’ll tell you a secret. We live in a mad and inspiring world.
BEN HECHT

Mad Secret World
That God has managed to survive the inanities of the religions that do Him homage is truly a miraculous proof of His existence.
BEN HECHT

Atheism Existence Proof
In Hollywood a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
BEN HECHT

Hollywood Names Thirty
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 HECHT

Actors Faith People
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

Art Mass World

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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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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