I have lived in other cities but been inside of only one. I once wore all the windows of Chicago and all its doorways on a key ring. Salons, mansions, alleys, courtrooms, depots, factories, hotels, police cells, the lake front, the rooftops and the sidewalks were my haberdashery.
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
Out of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland, there are scarcely fifty men and women of wit and talent... 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
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
Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.
Ben Hecht
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
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
Since my boyhood, I have sought always to please, but out of a kindness in me, never out of fear or respect for what was in others.
Ben Hecht