Moss Hart > Quotes

“The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.”
― Moss Hart, Act One

“So far as I know, anything worth hearing is not usually uttered at seven o'clock in the morning; and if it is, it will generally be repeated at a more reasonable hour for a larger and more wakeful audience.”
― Moss Hart

“I have had many successes and many failures in my life. My successes have always been for different reasons, but my failures have always been for the same reason: I said yes when I meant no.”
― Moss Hart

“Quiet, everybody! Quiet! Well, Sir, we've been getting along pretty good for quite a while now, and we're certainly much obliged. Remember, all we ask is to just go along and be happy in our own sort of way. Of course we want to keep our health but as far as anything else is concerned, we'll leave it to You. Thank You.”
― Moss Hart, You Can't Take it With You

“Can success change the human mechanism so completely between one dawn and another? Can if make one feel taller, more alive, handsomer, uncommonly gifted and indomitably secure with the certainty that this is the way life will always be? It can and it does!”
― Moss Hart, Act One

“It was possible in this wonderful city for that nameless little boy -for any of its millions- to have a decent chance to scale the walls and achieve what they wished. Wealth, rank or an imposing name counted for nothing. The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.”
― Moss Hart, Act One

“How many of us would be willing to settle when we're young for what we eventually get? All those plans we make...what happens to them? It's only a handful of the lucky ones that can look back and say that they even came close.”
― Moss Hart, You Can't Take it With You

“There is something maddening about mediocrity that calls forth the worst in those who are forced to deal with it.”
― Moss Hart, Act One

“Self-pity is not a pleasant emotion and is a fruitless one as well, for its point of no return is an onset of black despair in very short order.”
― Moss Hart, Act One

“The general conception that all actors are born exhibitionists is far from the truth. They are quite the opposite. They are shy, frightened people in hiding from themselves- people who have found a way of concealing their secret by footlights, make up and the parts they play. Their own self rejection is what has made most of them actors.”
― Moss Hart, Act One

“TONY: You know what you're saying, don't you?
ALICE: What?
TONY: That you'd rather spend the summer with me than with anybody else.
ALICE: Was I?
TONY: Well, if it's true about the summer, how would you feel about — the winter?
ALICE: Yes, I'd — like that too.
TONY (tremulous): Then there's spring and autumn. If you could — see your way clear about those, Miss Sycamore?
ALICE: I might.
TONY: I guess that's the whole year. We haven't forgotten anything, have we?”
― Moss Hart, You Can't Take it With You

“A sharp sense of the ironic can be the equivalent of the faith that moves mountains. Far more quickly than reason or logic, irony can penetrate rage and puncture self-pity.”
― Moss Hart, Act One: An Autobiography

“The self-hatred that destroys is the waste of unfulfilled promise.”
― Moss Hart

“Every successful person I have ever known has had it—actor or businessman, writer or politician. It is that instinct or ability to sense and seize the right moment without wavering or playing safe, and without it many gifted people flicker brilliantly and briefly and then fade into oblivion in spite of their undoubted talents.”
― Moss Hart, Act One: An Autobiography

“down, rousing Priestly Morrison from the depths of his seat, where he had sunk so low that only the top of his hat was visible. He”
― Moss Hart, Act One: An Autobiography

“Poverty does more than rob one of creature comforts and the right to live with dignity—its thievery can encompass the loss of a brother and father as well. Shaw was correct when he declared that poverty was a sin against God and man alike, and he might have added that ugliness, which is a concomitant of poverty, can be equated with evil. I resolved to do something about both. I”
― Moss Hart, Act One: An Autobiography