Ben Hecht Quotes

Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing. ~ Ben Hecht

I'm a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain. ~ Ben Hecht

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

Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos. ~ 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. ~ Ben Hecht

There's one thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die - their silence. ~ Ben Hecht

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

Kindness, tolerance, integrity, modesty, generosity - these are attributes that events permit us. They are our holiday moods, and we are as proud of them as of the fine clothes we have hung away to wear on occasions. ~ Ben Hecht

McCue: Now, Mrs. Margolies, this is Mr. McCue of the City News Bureau - City News Bureau - is it rue, Madame that you were the victim of a peeping tom?
Kruger: Ask her if she's worth peeping at?
Wilson: Has she got a friend? ~ Ben Hecht

I see a lot of fog and a few lights. I like it when life's hidden. It gives you a chance to imagine nice things, nicer than they are. ~ Ben Hecht

Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too. One false move and you're in over your head. ~ Ben Hecht

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

The factors that laid low so whooping and puissant an empire as the old Hollywood are many. I can think of a score, including the barbarian hordes of Television. But there is one that stands out for me in the post-mortem ... The factor had to do with the basis of movie-making: 'Who shall be in charge of telling the story.' ~ Ben Hecht

Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our party, even in those glowing days, the clock was always striking twelve for someone at the height of greatness; and there was never a prince to fetch her back to the happy scene. ~ Ben Hecht

The German mass murder of the Jews ... brought my Jewishness to the surface. ~ Ben Hecht

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. ~ 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. 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. ~ Ben Hecht

Tell it, Fanny. About the crowds, streets, buildings, lights, about the whirligig of loneliness, about the humpty-dumpty clutter of longings. And then explain about the summer parks and the white snow and the moon window in the sky. Throw in a poignantly ironical dissertation on life, on its uncharted aimlessness, and speak like Sherwood Anderson about the desire that stir in the heart. Speak like Remy de Gourmont and Dostoevsky and Stevie Crane, like Schopenhauer and Dreiser and Isaiah; speak like all the great questioners whose tongues have wagged and whose hearts have burned with questions. He will listen bewilderedly and, perhaps, only perhaps, understand for a moment the dumb pathos of your eyes. ~ Ben Hecht

There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind ... ~ Ben Hecht

Out of the seventy movies I've written some ten of them were not entirely waste product. ~ Ben Hecht

I discovered early in my movie work that a movie is 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 Hecht

I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops. I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock, tasted more than any fit belly could hold, learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me. ~ Ben Hecht

The only practical way yet discovered by the world for curing its ills is to forget about them. ~ Ben Hecht

What better is there to sigh for than happiness, yesterday's or tomorrow's. ~ Ben Hecht

I know that a man who tries to convert me to any cause
is actually at work on his own conversion,
unless he is looking for funds under the mask of some fancied nobility. ~ Ben Hecht

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

The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links. ~ Ben Hecht

Of the 60 movies I wrote, more than half were written in two weeks or less. ~ Ben Hecht

Love's the only thing I've thought of or read about since I was knee-high. That's what I always dreamed of, of meeting somebody and falling in love. And when that remarkable thing happened, I was going to recite poetry to her for hours about how her heart's an angel's wing and her hair the strings of a heavenly harp. Instead I got drunk and hollered at her and called her a harpy. ~ Ben Hecht

They'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 Hecht

When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy. ~ Ben Hecht

Out of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland, there are scarcely fifty men and women of wit and talent ... 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

Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety. ~ Ben Hecht

The movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century.Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them - as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people. ~ Ben Hecht

He was in love with life as an ant on a summer blade of grass. ~ Ben Hecht

There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age. ~ Ben Hecht

I know that 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 one for the alms of my guilt. ~ Ben Hecht

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

In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel. ~ Ben Hecht

Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle. ~ Ben Hecht

Many of the writers who have inspired me most are outside the genre: Humorists like Robert Benchley and James Thurber, screenwriters like Ben Hecht and William Goldman, and journalists/columnists like H.L. Mencken, Mike Royko and Molly Ivins. ~ John Scalzi

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

People saw the Depression as a necessary thing - a chance to squeeze out the excesses, get back to Puritan morality. That just made things worse. ~ Ben Bernanke

Ben Says: We can only help better humanity if we better ourselves first. Education, diligence, passion, charity~helping all we can, when we can...will go a long way towards making our world a better place.

Timothy Pina
Bullying Ben ~ Timothy Pina

Why do people report themselves to be as happy as they were back when we all had less? Well, for one thing, we are comparing two societies that are both majestically wealthy in comparison to almost all societies throughout history. Neither the surveyed Americans of the 1950s nor those of the 2000s were struggling with endemic distress- hunger, pain, humiliation. And average people who are not in such distress are statistically more likely to call themselves happy than not. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht

It's hard in daily life. It's even harder in management because it's the stress of the moment. ~ Ben Horowitz

I have no problem whatsoever with allowing gay people to live as they please, as long as they don't try to impose their lifestyle on everyone else. ~ Ben Carson

The nice thing about age is worrying less and less about what people think. ~ Ben Folds

O what we ben! And what we come to! ~ Russell Hoban

It's when you meet another wretch who is as negative as you about everything that the thunder rolls and the lightening crashes and real life starts - because genuine communication has started ~ Ben Watson

I'm not bitching."
"Yes, you are. You're bitching like a junior miss beauty queen. ~ Rick Yancey

I'm romantically inclined. No human being on Earth is not attracted to other people. There is no fairy tale that they only have eyes for you. You just choose to act on it or not. ~ Ben Folds

The Federal Reserve, like other central banks, wields powerful tools; democratic accountability requires that the public be able to see how and for what purposes those tools are being used. ~ Ben Bernanke

As a kid I had dreams about being successful, thinking it would be cool. Then, when I was in my 20s, I really thought I had it much more figured out than I do now. ~ Ben Stiller

If the Masters offered no money at all, I would be here trying just as hard. ~ Ben Hogan

One of the things I've learned is to be receptive of feedback. ~ Ben Silbermann

It makes me feel good that I can now sit there and go, I've worked with Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, all the great actors that I've worked with ... Sir Ben Kingsley. ~ Aaron Eckhart

The truth that our futures are so often determined not by some grand design or deliberate strategy but by an ordinary run-of-the-mill head cold. ~ Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Once day when the final trumpet sounds and my life is over ... It won't matter anymore if I Rich or Poor, Democratic or Republican, Catholic or Protestant.
What will mater will be my spiritual relationship with God and out of love & reverence for him that I did all I could to help those in need and in despair. Bringing HOPE to the HOPELESS is the Greatest Badge I can Ever Wear! ~ Timothy Pina

To me the gold price takes the form of a very uncomplicated formula, and all you have to do is divide one by 'n.' And 'n', I'm glad you ask, 'n' is the world's trust in the institution of paper money and in the capacity of people like Ben Bernanke to manage it. So the smaller 'n', the bigger the price. One divided by a receding number is the definition of a bull market. ~ James Grant

In democracy, our most important tool is to vote. But our power tool is when we have the power to influence others on who to vote for. ~ Ben Tolosa

It's with them that we have constituted a liberation front and brought our logistic support to armies to help their countries come out of colonialism and establish a national internal regime. ~ Ahmed Ben Bella

Although I strongly believe in individual rights and the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, I also recognize that public health and public safety are extremely important in our society. Certain communicable diseases have been largely eradicated by immunization policies in this country. We should not allow those diseases to return by forgoing safety immunization programs for philosophical, religious or other reasons when we have the means to eradicate them. ~ Ben Carson

Ben saw me, not just the curated version of myself I put out into the world, not just the stats of my life on paper. He saw straight through to the untouched depths of my soul, and I knew in that instant that he understood me. He knew me. Without even trying. ~ Jason Collins

I know everything I need to know about you," she countered, taken aback.
"You do?" he asked, and peered at her, eyes intent. "You do, You have that look in your eyes from the forest, when you called me a monster."
He came within a meter or two of Rey, and she wondered what would happen if she refused to move and they intersected. Would she find herself in his mind again, and have to endure his presence in hers? Could they actually touch, across a galaxy?
"You are a monster," Rey said, remembering the terror of her paralysis on Takodana.
She stared back at him -- and found his. eyes full of hurt. Hurt -- and conflict.
"Yes, I am," Kylo said, and there was no menace in his voice -- only misery. ~ Jason Fry

He was close enough so that I could see his face clearly, even with his helmet's cheek flaps tied tightly under his bearded chin. I looked into the eyes of Hector, prince of Troy. Brown eyes they were, the colour of rich farm soil, calm and deep. No anger, no battle lust. He was a cool and calculating warrior, a thinker among these hordes of wild, screaming brutes. He wore a small round shield buckled to his left arm instead of the massive body-length type most of the other nobles carried. In it was painted a flying heron, a strangely peaceful emblem in the midst of all this mayhem and gore. ~ Ben Bova

My 'thing' is that I just lie in my immense bed and look out the window at the skyline over Virginia and the sky and the airplanes coming into Reagan. I really love doing that. ~ Ben Stein

Acting is broad enough a church that you can pick your races, decide which way you want to go at different times.I think that the story and circumstance tends to dictate the most and then what you do with your own approach after that. ~ Ben Mendelsohn

I lay down and started to feel a little depressed about prom. I refused to feel any kind of sadness over the fact that I wasn't going to prom, but I had - stupidly, embarrassingly - thought of finding Margo, and getting her to come home with me just in time for prom, like late on Saturday night, and we'd walk into the Hilton ballroom wearing jeans and ratty T-shirts, and we'd be just in time for the last dance, and we'd dance while everyone pointed at us and marveled at the return of Margo, and then we'd fox-trot the hell out of there and go get ice cream at Friendly's. So yes, like Ben, I harbored ridiculous prom fantasies. But at least I didn't say mine out loud. ~ John Green

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil, the same ebullient, laughing, jovial man. ~ Ben Okri

The government is supposed to conform to our will. By taking the most important thing you have, your health and your health care, and turning that over to the government, you fundamentally shift the power, a huge chunk of it, from the people to the government. This is not the direction that we want the government to go in this nation. ~ Ben Carson

Follow your dreams and beielve in your heart day after day. Then sit back and just watch great things happen in your life! ~ Taliah Pina

Some employees make products, some make sales; the CEO makes decisions. Therefore, a CEO can most accurately be measured by the speed and quality of those decisions. ~ Ben Horowitz

You don't actually know enough about me to insult me properly. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

I want to take advantage of any popularity I have. ~ Ben Barnes

I make films but I am trained as a designer. I come from this series of designers called critical designers, speculative designers. ~ Nelly Ben Hayoun

My parents used to throw great New Year's Eve parties. They invited such an eclectic mix of showbiz people. All those cool people were always hanging out at our apartment. ~ Ben Stiller

Golf is 20 percent talent and 80 percent management. ~ Ben Hogan