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 HechtA sprinkling of diners saying, 'We eat, but not amid normal surroundings. We are emancipated from normal sourroundings. It is extremely important that we eat off little red circular tables instead of big brown square tables in order to conform with our mission, which is that of non-conformity.
Ben HechtI'll tell you a secret. We live in a mad and inspiring world.
Ben HechtIn Hollywood a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.
Ben HechtTell 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 HechtThere 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 HechtTags: gone-with-the-wind
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?
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. 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 HechtTags: writing write criticism praise writer forgotten dislike habit censure like benefit instruct
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.
Tags: ben-hecht
A wise man will not trust too much those who admire him, even for his wisdom. He knows that an admirer is never truly satisfied until he can substitute pity for his admiration and disdain for his applause. Our admirers are always on the lookout for evidence of our collapse. They find a solace in the fact that our superiority was transitory and that we end as they do—old and useless.
Ben HechtTags: ben-hecht
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