Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
Lillian HellmanRead
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashion.
Interpretation
Stay true to your principles regardless of societal trends.
This quote emphasizes the importance of integrity and authenticity over conforming to changing societal norms or pressures. Lillian Hellman asserts that one should not compromise their moral beliefs for the sake of fleeting trends, suggesting that personal conscience and values should remain steadfast even in a world that may prioritize superficiality.
In practice
During a speech on individuality, one could quote this to inspire others to uphold their values.
Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?
If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.
It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.
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.
Nobody knows what you want except you. And nobody will be as sorry as you if you don't get it. Wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. Having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell.
Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much, you feel so guilty.
All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.
Our scientific age demands that we provide definitions, measurements, and statistics in order to be taken seriously. Yet most of the important things in life cannot be precisely defined or measured. Can we define or measure love, beauty, friendship, or decency, for example?
Any psychology of sign systems will be part of social psychology - that is to say, will be exclusively social; it will involve the same psychology as is applicable in the case of languages.
Tokenism does not change stereotypes of social systems but works to preserve them, since it dulls the revolutionary impulse.
The day nothing turns you on - you're dead. No matter how many more years you go on breathing.
I don't believe that in the name of the holiness of the city you have to put barbed wires, machine gun nests, mine pins and everything of that, in the name of the holiness of Jerusalem.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.