When irrational terror takes to itself the fiat of moral goodness, somebody has to die. I thought then that in terms of this process the witch hunts had something to say to the anti-Communist hysteria. No man lives who has not got a panic button and when it is pressed by the clean white hand of moral duty, a certain murderous train is set in motion.
What is the most innocent place in any country? Is it not the insane asylum? These people drift through life truly innocent, unable to see into themselves at all.
We used to shoot a man who acted like a dog, but honor was real there, you were protecting something. But here? This is the land of the great big dogs, you don’t love a man here, you eat him! That’s the principle; the only one we live by.
We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!
Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.
Today a doctor could make a million dollars if he could figure out a way to bring a boy into the world without a trigger finger.
There is prodigious danger in the seeking loose spirits.
There are certain people, y’know, the sicker they get the longer they live.
There are certain men in the world who rather see everybody hung before they’ll take blame.
Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.
Theater is a very changeable art. It responds to the moment in history the way the newspaper does, and there’s no predicting what to come up with next.
The world is an oyster, but you don’t crack it open on a mattress!
