Lillian Hellman Quotes

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

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.

My father was often angry when I was most like him.

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

If you are willing to take the punishment you're halfway through the battle. That the issues may be...

Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much,...

Writers are interesting people, but often mean and petty.

Nothing you write if you hope to be any good will ever come out as you first hoped.

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

The past with its pleasures its rewards its foolishness its punishments is there for each of us ...

It's a sad day when you find out that it's not accident or time or fortune, but just yourself that k...

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

It is best to act with confidence no matter how little right you have to it.

Unjust. How many times I've used that word, scolded myself with it. All I mean by it now is that I d...

It is not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a mi...

Nobody outside of a baby carriage or a judge's chamber believes in an unprejudiced point of view.

People change and forget to tell each other.

I'm too old to recover, too narrow to forgive myself.

Most people coming out of war feel lost and resentful. What had been a minute-to-minute confrontatio...

Success isn't everything but it makes a man stand straight.

They're fancy talkers about themselves writers. If I had to give young writers advice I would say ...

I will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.

Decisions particularly important ones have always made me sleepy perhaps because I know that I wi...

Well, there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the loc...

I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.

Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times until any success became an...

Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

Things start out as hopes and end up as habits.

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