I went out there for a thousand a week, and I worked Monday, and I got fired Wednesday. The guy that hired me was out of town Tuesday. – Nelson Algren
The Impossible Generalized Man today is the critic who believes in loving those unworthy of love as well as those worthy –yet believes this only insofar as no personal risk is entailed. Meaning he loves no one, worthy or no. This is what makes him impossible. – Nelson Algren
Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Moms. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. – Nelson Algren
The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man. – Nelson Algren
The motion picture made in Hollywood, if it is to create art at all, must do so within such strangling limitations of subject and treatment that it is a blind wonder it ever achieves any distinction beyond the purely mechanical slickness of a glass and chromium bathroom. – Raymond Chandler
In the court of the movie Owner, none criticized, none doubted. And none dared speak of art. In the Owners mind art was a synonym for bankruptcy. The movie Owners are the only troupe in the history of entertainment that has never been seduced by the adventure of the entertainment world. – Ben Hecht