I was introduced to Ben Hecht, many years ago now, by my friend Paul Greenfield. Like most people of my generation I had never heard of him. He had been fairly famous some decades earlier, know early for his cynical and cutting criticisms, then as Hollywood’s premier script doctor.
Here’s a typical Hecht aside:
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.
And here’s one of the greatest telegrams of all time, and the one that brought him to Hollywood. It was sent to him by his friend, Herman Mankiewicz:
Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don’t let this get around.
As the years went by, however, and as his fame ebbed and flowed, Hecht became something more. In fact, he became a thinker of great depth, and I’m quite sure you’ll benefit from spending some time with his thoughts.
And so here, without embellishment, are the Hecht entries in my quotes file. Enjoy:
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. (Perfidy)
The idea that there was something more powerful in life than the whim of kings, that there was a justice that the mind could impose on the might of nations, began with the Jews. The Jews were the artists and egoists of this idea. It was so powerful an idea that they, with artistic modesty, had to attribute it to God rather than to themselves. (Guide For The Bedeviled)
A simple fact entered my head one day and put an end to my revolt against the Deity. It occurred to me that God was not engaged in corrupting the mind of man but in creating it. This may sound like no fact at all, or like the most childish of quibbles. But whatever it is, it brought me a sigh of relief, a slightly bitter sigh. I was relieved because instead of beholding a man as a finished and obviously worthless product, unable to bring sanity into human affairs, I looked on him as a creature in the making. And lo, I was aware that like my stooped and furry brothers, the apes, I am God’s incomplete child. My groping brain, no less than my little toe, is a mechanism in His evolution-busy hands. (A Child of The Century)
There is also a new sort of fame in our day that has never quite been known before. It is a fame seemingly invented out of whole cloth, based upon nothing and needing only a press agent to keep it alive. This new species of fame does not wait for a man to win a race or a worldly prize before riveting its neon light on his head… They are famous for stopping in hotels, for holding hands in public, for speaking to each other, for having babies, for getting invited to parties… So deep is the limbo into which industry, politics and overpopulation is shoving us, that we ask of fame that it makes us aware of men rather than supermen. A depersonalized citizenry avid for identity has invented this new type of fame. The lonely city dwellers, whose human faces are lost in the shuffle of world problems and mechanized existence, elect representatives to live for them. (A Child of The Century)
They are unable to think except in homage to other thoughts. (A Child of The Century)
The mystery was chiefly this – that there was seemingly a tiny proportion of the human family born without greed, who entered life without a fear of tomorrow, without an urge to lose themselves safely in the known and practical words of their elders. (A Child of The Century)
… a time darkened by the pall of government. (A Child of The Century)
The more we let others sing, dance and perform for us, the more empty we become. (A Child of The Century)
It grows ever harder to make friends in a complex world, for friendship requires contact. But one can make enemies of those one has never seen or heard. This lonely enemy-making activity is becoming more and more the American way. (A Child of The Century)
… most of his exaltations have nothing to do with himself. (A Child of The Century)
To my astonishment, there appeared a man I hardly knew with totally alien moods. That man was I. I seemed to be looking with eyes I never had used on a planet not yet inhabited… The sense that life was new, and all land and sea were at their beginnings made me happy… I had the illusion of being distributed around various parts of the room in which I lay. There seemed to be a number of me’s, and try as I would I was unable to assemble them. I was fascinated with being a number of people and discussed this with Rose and her sister Minna. I had no thought for my illness, and the fact that Rose and the doctors believed me seriously ill seemed absurd. I had never felt so remarkably alive, nor so full of eagerness… It was a white, sunlit hospital room in which visitors sat and talked. But I looked on a strange world in this room. I had never known or felt this room before. It was a world of gentleness. My heart ached with happiness when I beheld it. The kindliness of the faces than beheld me, the fine, cool talent of the doctors and nurses that tended me were only a part of the gentleness that embraced me. The gentleness was mostly something within me. I looked on everything with love. As the days passed, each morning became a rendezvous at which I arrived eager and smiling. I needed no visitors, books or music to keep me diverted. The day flying in through the window was enough. The sky darkening, the night coming delighted me. The word God did not enter my head, but a word that seemed the same was always there. It was the word life. I felt a gentleness toward people because they were part of a happy mystery of moving and breathing. I was pleased by the way they walked and felt close to all who came into my room, including the hospital barber, as if they were kinsfolk. I returned to Nyak on the day Jenny was having a birthday party. The garden was filled with the voices of her four-and-five-year-old friends. Their whoops and squeals of joy seemed the perfect sounds of mankind… I though of the possibility of dying and found myself smiling at the impossibility of such an event. The love that had come to me a few weeks ago swelled my heart and brightened the room… again I lay through dreamy hours, making love to time as if it were a dancing girl… There were few thoughts in my head. At times I remembered incidents of past years and made notes of them. The memories were curiously alike. They were all happy. I loved not only what was around me, but all that had ever been. Gratitudes I had never felt brought tears to my eyes at night and I wondered what I could do to thank the sea, the stars and the multitude of days through which I had come. After a few weeks I bought a stock of pencils and began to write this book. (A Child of The Century)
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Paul Rosenberg
freemansperspective.com