121 Quotes by Dalton Trumbo

Maybe it was just as well he was eating through a tube that English coffee was so stinking bad. Roast beef and pudding and soggy pastries and bad coffee. It was just as well.

The child tortures the fly because he has the power to do so, and had not yet learned how mercifully to kill.

But whose idea of decency? And decency for who? Speak up and tell us what decency is. Tell us how much better a decent dead man feels than an indecent live one.

These bullies must keep up the assault, the slander, the character assassinations, stirring up the emotions of the public to a fever pitch, acting like saviors when in actuality they are frauds, phony patriots and very evil men in disguise, wrapping themselves in the flag.

When armies begin to move and flags wave and slogans pop up watch out little guy because it’s somebody else’s chestnuts in the fire not yours. It’s words you’re fighting for and you’re not making an honest deal your life for something better. You’re being noble and after you’re killed the thing you traded your life for won’t do you any good and chances are it won’t do anybody else any good either.

There’s no word worth your life.

The worst criminals on earth are those who toy with love.

We stumble into our graves knowing so well how to have done better.

What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It’s just a word like house or table or any other word. Only it’s a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let’s fight for liberty and he can’t show you liberty. He can’t prove the thing he is talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it?