Selected Lillian Hellman Quotations
• [On her own writing] I am a moral writer, often too moral a writer, and I cannot avoid, it seems, the summing-up. I think that is only a mistake when it fails to achieved its purpose, and I would rather make the attempt and fail, than fail to make the attempt.
• I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group. [Letter to the US House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, 1952]
• For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt. [Watch on the Rhine, 1941]
• Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?
• Fashions in sin change. [Watch on the Rhine, 1941]
• What a word is truth. Slippery, tricky, unreliable. I tried in these books to tell the truth. [Three, 1979]
• Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth. [The Little Foxes, 1939]
• Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels. [Scoundrel Time, 1976]
• If I had to give young writers advice, I'd say don't listen to writers talk about writing.
• 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.
• Cocaine isn't habit-forming. I should know - I've been using it for years. [Pentimento, 1973]
• People change and forget to tell each other. [Toys in the Attic, 1960]
• My father was often angry when I was most like him.
• I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.
• [About Tallulah Bankhead] Tallulah was sitting in a group of people, giving the monologue she always thought was conversation.
• [About her relationship with Dashiell Hammett] It was an unspoken pleasure, that having come together so many years, ruined so much and repaired a little, we had endured.
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About These Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2009. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.
Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Lillian Hellman Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/lillian_hellman.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)
