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"26 Lillian Hellman Quotes & Sayings

      American     /     View profile
Born: 20 June 1905. Died: 30 June 1984 | Dramatist | Screenwriter |
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.
Cynicism Saying Truth Unpleasant
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I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashion.

Cannot Conscience Cut Fashion
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Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view.

Baby Believes Carriage Chamber
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People change and forget to tell each other.
Change Each Forget Other
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Unjust. How many times I've used that word, scolded myself with it. All I mean by it now is that I don't have the final courage to say that I refuse to preside over violations against myself, and to hell with justice.

Against Courage Final Hell
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Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

Does Made Often Time
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What a word is truth. Slippery, tricky, unreliable. I tried in these books to tell the truth.

Books I Tried Slippery Tell
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If you believe, as the Greeks did, that man is at the mercy of the gods, then you write tragedy. The end is inevitable from the beginning. But if you believe that man can solve his own problems and is at nobody's mercy, then you will probably write melodrama.

Beginning Believe Did End
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Belief is a moral act for which the believer is to be held responsible.

Act Belief Believer Held
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If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

About Advice Give Had
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Nothing you write, if you hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped.

Come Ever First Good
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I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.
Like People Ready Refuse
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My father was often angry when I was most like him.

Angry Father Him Like
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It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour.

Brightest Cannot Famous Famous People
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It is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.

Been Even Good Lives
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We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It is considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell on them.

About America Considered Dwell
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Since when do we have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?

Agree Defend Injustice People
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Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.

Any Costs Dramatic Failure
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They're fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

About Advice Fancy Give
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Things start out as hopes and end up as habits.
End Habits Hopes Out
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God forgives those who invent what they need.

Forgives God Invent Need
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You lose your manners when you are poor.
Lose Manners Poor You
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Success isn't everything but it makes a man stand straight.

Everything Makes Man Stand
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Lonely people, in talking to each other, can make each other lonelier.

Each Lonelier Lonely Make
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It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.

Act Best Confidence How
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There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. And other people who stand around and watch them eat.

Around Bible Earth Eat
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Lillian Hellman Quotes & Sayings