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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

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Like The Actor, Authority

Ben Hecht

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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.

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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.

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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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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.

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.

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.

That God Has Managed To Survive The Inanities Of The Religions That Do Him Homage Is Truly A Miraculous Proof Of His Existence.

He Was In Love With Life As An Ant On A Summer Blade Of Grass.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Innocent People Can Get Into Terrible Jams, Too. One False Move And You're In Over Your Head.

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

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In The Court Of The Movie Owner, None Criticized, None Doubted. And None Dared Speak Of Art. In The Owner's Mind Art Was A Synonym For Bankruptcy. The Movie Owners Are The Only Troupe In The History Of Entertainment That Has Never Been Seduced By The Adventure Of The Entertainment World.

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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.'

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.

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.

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