Quotes from Moss Hart

Boredom is the keynote of poverty - of all its indignities, it is perhaps the hardest of all to live with - for where there is no money there is no change of any kind.

A sharp sense of the ironic can be the equivalent of the faith that moves mountains. Far more quicky than reason or logic, irony can penetrate rage and puncture self-pity.

Charity in the theater begins and ends with those who have a play opening within a week of one's own.

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.

Julie Andrews has a wonderful British strength that makes you wonder why they lost India.

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.

All the mistakes I ever made were when I wanted to say 'No' and said 'Yes'.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

There is something maddening about mediocrity that calls forth the worst in those who are forced to deal with it.

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?

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.

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.

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

Nobody bores any man as much as an unhappy female.

Without vanity a writer's work is tepid, and he must accept his vanity as part of his stock in trade and live with it as one of the hazards of his profession.

There is nothing like tasting the grit of fear for rediscovering that the umbilical cord is made of piano wire.

The only credential the city [New York] 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.

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.