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.
Interpretation
Hecht appreciates television as a medium that still preserves poetic language and beauty in its storytelling.
In this quote, Ben Hecht expresses his admiration for television as a unique artistic platform where the poetic qualities of language can still thrive. He highlights the beauty of women's features and essence as described in poetic terms, suggesting that television captures a form of artistry that remains vibrant and evocative, reminiscent of traditional poetry.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of artistic expression in modern media.
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.
The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.
Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.
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.
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.
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.
I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.
The point of my photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to.
Wine has a drastic, an astringent taste. I cannot help wincing as I drink. Ascent of flowers, radiance and heat, are distilled here to a fiery, yellow liquid. Just behind my shoulder-blades some dry thing, wide-eyed, gently closes, gradually lulls itself to sleep. This is rapture. This is relief.
I knew that I was 'interesting' at 18 because I was aware that I could get away with doing things on stage.
I'm just going to make the music I love to make, and I'm going to mature with my music.
People say you're trapped in this genre. You're a horror guy. I say wait a minute - I'm able to say exactly what I think. I'm able to talk about, comment about, take snapshots of what's going on at the time. I don't feel trapped. I feel like this is my way of being able to express myself.
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