“The writer is a definite human phenomenon. He is almost a type – as pugilists are a type. He may be a bad writer – an insipid one or a clumsy one – but there is a bug in him that keeps spinning yarns; and that bulges his brow a bit, narrows his jaws, weakens his eyes and gives him girl children instead of boys. Nobody but a writer can write. People who hang around writers for years – as producers did – who are much smarter and have much better taste, never learn to write.”

— Ben Hecht

from "Elegy for Wonderland", by Ben Hecht, Esquire Magazine, March 1959

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Ben Hecht 32

American screenwriter 1894–1964

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