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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

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A Man Nearly Always

Ben Hecht

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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.

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Love Is A Hole In The Heart.

Time Is A Circus, Always Packing Up And Moving Away.

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.

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.

Love Is The Magician That Pulls Him Out Of His Own Hat.

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.

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.

Prejudice Is A Raft Onto Which The Shipwrecked Mind Clambers And Paddles To Safety.

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.

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.

In Moderating, Not Satisfying Desires, Lies Peace.

There Is Nothing As Dull As An Intellectual Ally After A Certain Age.

The Honors Hollywood Has For The Writer Are As Dubious As Tissue-paper Cuff Links.

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.

A Movie Is Never Any Better Than The Stupidest Man Connected With It.

Immorality, Perversion, Infidelity, Cannibalism, Etc., Are Unassailable By Church And Civic League If You Dress Them Up In The Togas And Talliths Of The Good Book.

I'm A Hollywood Writer, So I Put On My Sports Jacket And Take Off My Brain.

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.

I Discovered Early In My Movie Work That A Movies 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.

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.

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.

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.

People's Sex Habits Are As Well Known In Hollywood As Their Political Opinions, And Much Less Criticized.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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