Ben Hecht

Love is a hole in the heart.

— Ben Hecht

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

— Ben Hecht

Of the 60 movies I wrote, more than half were written in two weeks or less.

— Ben Hecht

"It's gonna be just like war!" an editor exults. "That's it! War! You put that in the lead.

— Ben Hecht

The actual facts are so simple. I love you. You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto. Otto loves you. Otto loves me. There now! Start to unravel from there.

— Ben Hecht

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.

— Ben Hecht

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.

— Ben Hecht

Gibbons is a man full of pain and violence. On this night, there is a Witch's Sabbath in his heart. Storms are blowing his world to bits and great troubles are pounding him on a reef.

— Ben Hecht

The only place I felt at home was in your heart. You were the only light that didn't go out on me.

— Ben Hecht

Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, build them in with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them and, hello, America, hang on to your lights, they're the only lights in the world.

— Ben Hecht

You're such a nice boy, what do you want to go off and get killed in the War for?

— Ben Hecht

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.

— Ben Hecht

In Hollywood, a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel.

— Ben Hecht

The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.

— Ben Hecht

People's sex habits are as well known in Hollywood as their political opinions, and much less criticized.

— Ben Hecht

I was afraid you would think I was bragging.

— Ben Hecht

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

There is nothing as dull as an intellectual ally after a certain age.

— Ben Hecht

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

— Ben Hecht

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

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

— Ben Hecht

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.

— Ben Hecht

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

— Ben Hecht

The movies are an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming cultured people.

— Ben Hecht

How My Egoism Died

— Ben Hecht

What better is there to sigh for than happiness, yesterday's or tomorrow's.

— Ben Hecht

Of the 60 movies I wrote, more than half were written in two weeks or less.

— Ben Hecht