Biography
Ben Hecht Quotes
“The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can’t have both.”
“Listen, little boy. In this business, there’s only one law you gotta follow to keep outta trouble. Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doin’ it.”
“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.”
“In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.”
“People’s sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.”
“There’s only one law you gotta follow to keep outta trouble. Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doin’ it.”
“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.”
“Love is a hole in the heart.”
“Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.”
“Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.”
“In moderating, not satisfying desires, lies peace.”
“I have written a raucous valentine to a poet’s dream and agony.”
“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.”
“Prejudice is a raft onto which the shipwrecked mind clambers and paddles to safety.”
“I’m a Hollywood writer, so I put on my sports jacket and take off my brain.”
“Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.”
“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.”
“Chicago is a sort of journalistic Yellowstone Park, offering haven to a last herd of fantastic bravos.”
