"Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a t… - Lillian Hellman

I am ready and willing to testify before the representatives of our Government as to my own opinions and my own actions, regardless of any risks or consequences to myself. But I am advised by counsel that if I answer the committee’s questions about myself, I must also answer questions about other people and that if I refuse to do so, I can be cited for contempt. My counsel tells me that if I answer questions about myself, I will have waived my rights under the fifth amendment and could be forced legally to answer questions about others. This is very difficult for a layman to understand. But there is one principle that I do understand: I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive. I do not like subversion or disloyalty in any form and if I had ever seen any I would have considered it my duty to have reported it to the proper authorities. But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.

Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in nineteenth-century France and England, or twentieth-century Russia and America.

"به چشمهایم زل زد و گفت :
- با هم درستش می کنیم !
و من تازه فهمیدم تنهایی چه وسعت نامحدودی دارد،
"با هم"......چه لذتی داشت این با هم، حتی اگر با هم هیچ چیزی هم درست نمی شد ؛
حتی اگر تمام سرمایه ام بر باد می رفت .
حسی که به واژه ی " با هم " داشتم را
با هیچ چیزی در این دنیا معاوضه نمی کردم!...
تنها کسی که وحشت تنهایی را درک کرده باشد،
می توانست حس من را در آن لحظات، درک کند!"