Source: Scoundrel Time (1976), p. 82
Context: To many intellectuals the radicals had become the chief, perhaps the only, enemy. … Not alone because the radical's reasons were suspect but because his convictions would lead to a world that deprived the rest of us of what we had. Very few people were capable of admitting anything so simple. But the antiradical camp contained the same divisions: often they were honest and thoughtful men, often they were men who turned down a dark road for dark reasons.
But radicalism or anti-radicalism should have had nothing to do with the sly, miserable methods of McCarthy, Nixon and colleagues, as they flailed at Communists, near-Communists, and nowhere-near Communists. Lives were being ruined and few hands were raised in help. Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?
Lillian Hellman: Doing
Lillian Hellman was American dramatist and screenwriter. Explore interesting quotes on doing.
Source: Scoundrel Time (1976), p. 150
Context: Sad is a fake word for me to be using, I am still angry that their reason for disagreeing with McCarthy was too often his crude methods.... Many of the anti-Communists were, of course, honest men. But none of them... has stepped forward to admit a mistake. It is not necessary in this country; they too know that we are a people who do not remember much. I have written here that I have recovered. I mean it only in a worldly sense because I do not believe in recovery. The past, with its pleasures, its rewards, its foolishness, its punishments, is there for each of us forever, and it should be.
Source: Scoundrel Time (1976), p. 150