Ben Hecht Quotes

Quotes about:

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  Love is the magician that pulls him out of his own hat.

  Ben Hecht

  Love, Valentines Day, Men

  "A Child of the Century".

  63 Copy quote

• Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.

  Ben Hecht

  Time, Humorous, Moving

  "Elegy for Wonderland". Esquire Magazine, March 1959.

  74 Copy quote

• 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

  Time, Business, Reading

  Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

  25 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ben Hecht

  Writing, Views, Castles

  19 Copy quote

• I know that a 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 man for the alms of my guilt.

  Ben Hecht

  Men, Envy, Guilt

  17 Copy quote

• I'll tell you a secret. We live in a mad and inspiring world.

  Ben Hecht

  Mad, Secret, World

  Ben Hecht (1924). “Erik Dorn”, p.99, Library of Alexandria

  16 Copy quote

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

  Ben Hecht

  Sports, Brain, Hollywood

  15 Copy quote

• 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 People, Men, Thinking

  Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Actors, Have Faith

  "Perfidy". Book by Ben Hecht, 1961.

  6 Copy quote

• 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, Proof, Existence

  Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

  6 Copy quote

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

  Ben Hecht

  World, Way, Forget

  "Perfidy". Book by Ben Hecht, 1961.

  4 Copy quote

• Of the things men give each other the greatest is loyalty.

  Ben Hecht

  Loyalty, Men, Giving

  Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

  6 Copy quote

• In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.

  Ben Hecht

  Lying, Desire, Deceit

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Nice, Light, Fog

  7 Copy quote

• Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.

  Ben Hecht

  Justice, Diversity, Safety

  49 Copy quote

• 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.

  Ben Hecht

  Political, World, Politics

  7 Copy quote

• 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, World, Mass

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Wise, Men, Yelling

  Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

  9 Copy quote

• The writer is a definite human phenomenon. He is almost a type - as pugilists are a type. He may be a bad writer - an insipid one or a clumsy one - but there is a bug in him that keeps spinning yarns; and that bulges his brow a bit, narrows his jaws, weakens his eyes and gives him girl children instead of boys. Nobody but a writer can write. People who hang around writers for years - as producers did - who are much smarter and have much better taste, never learn to write.

  Ben Hecht

  Girl, Children, Eye

  "Elegy for Wonderland" by Ben Hecht, Esquire Magazine, March 1959.

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Christian, Art, War

  Ben Hecht (1964). “Letters from Bohemia”

  7 Copy quote

• A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.

  Ben Hecht

  Men, Stupidest, Connected

  "A Child of the Century: The Autobiography of Ben Hecht". Book by Ben Hecht, 1954.

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Dream, Book, Knights

  "Tell Me the Truth About Love: Memories: 1953-1969". Book by Robert Ayres Carter, Xlibris Corporation, p. 151, 2008.

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, People, Intellectual

  21 Copy quote

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

  Men, Differences, Fifty

  18 Copy quote

• 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 Hecht

  Criticism, Dubious, News

  Ben Hecht (1954). “A child of the century”, Signet

  6 Copy quote

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