Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lilly" Hellmanwas an American dramatist and screenwriter known for her success as a playwright on Broadway, as well as her left-wing sympathies and political activism. She famously was blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activitiesat the height of the anti-communist campaigns of 1947–52. Although she continued to work on Broadway in the 1950s, her blacklisting by the American film industry caused a precipitous decline in her income during which time she had to work outside her chosen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth20 June 1905
CountryUnited States of America
Lillian Hellman quotes about
It doesn't pay well to fight for what we believe in.
It was an unspoken pleasure, that having come together so many years, ruined so much and repaired a little, we had endured.
We will not think noble because we are not noble. We will not live in beautiful harmony because there is no such thing in this world, nor should there be. We promise only to do our best and to live out our lives. Dear God, that's all we can promise in truth.
Haven't you lived in the South long enough to know that nothing is ever anybody's fault?
History is made by masses of people. One man, or ten men, don't start the earthquakes and don't stop them either. Only hero worshipers and ignorant historians think they do.
Maybe money is unreal for most of us, easier to give away than things we want.
Styles in wit change so.
Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.
Drinking makes uninteresting people matter less and late at night, matter not at all.
My father was often angry when I was most like him.
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.
Nothing you write, if you hope to be good, will ever come out as you first hoped.
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.
I'm good at embroidery. It's what I always wanted to do.... Yep, instead of whoring, I just wanted to do fancy embroidery.