The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.
Ben HechtRead
Criticism can never instruct or benefit you. Its chief effect is that of a telegram with dubious news. Praise leaves no glow behind, for it is a writer's habit to remember nothing good of himself. I have usually forgotten those who have admired my work, and seldom anyone who disliked it. Obviously, this is because praise is never enough and censure always too much.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Criticism has a stronger impact on us than praise, often leading to lasting negative feelings.
In this quote, Ben Hecht expresses the idea that while criticism tends to stick with us and influence our perceptions, praise can easily be forgotten. He suggests that criticism can overwhelm us, overshadowing any positive recognition we receive, indicating that our minds often linger on negative feedback more than positive affirmations.
Themes
CriticismPraiseWritingMemoryFeedback
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on resilience in the face of negativity.
More from Ben Hecht
All quotes →Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.
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Television excites me because it seems to be the last stamping ground of poetry, the last place where I hear women's hair rhapsodically described, women's faces acclaimed in odelike language.
Ben HechtRead
There was a land of Cavaliers and Cotton Fields called the Old South. Here in this pretty world, Gallantry took its last bow. Here was the last ever to be seen of Knights and their Ladies Fair, of Master and of Slave. Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered, a Civilization gone with the wind.
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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 HechtRead
Much more frequent in Hollywood than the emergence of Cinderella is her sudden vanishing. At our party, even in those glowing days, the clock was always striking twelve for someone at the height of greatness; and there was never a prince to fetch her back to the happy scene.
Ben HechtRead
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