Dalton Trumbo: Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we r...

The blacklist was a time of evil...no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil...[Looking] back on this time...it will do no good to search for villains or heroes or saints or devils because there were none; there were only victims.

Dalton Trumbo

hero evil sides

The chief internal enemies of any state are not spies nor saboteurs nor the paid agents of foreign governments. They are, on the contrary, those myriads of public officials who betray the trust imposed upon them by the people.

Dalton Trumbo

betrayal people enemy

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular gift in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility.

Dalton Trumbo

business responsibility jobs

Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well.

Dalton Trumbo

doctors christian mean

Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It's the music a man's spirit sings to his heart, when the earth's far away and there isn't any more fear. It's the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.

Dalton Trumbo

freedom ocean beautiful

The only kind of love worth having is the kind that goes on living and laughing and fighting and loving.

Dalton Trumbo

fighting goes-on laughing

Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility.

Dalton Trumbo

democracy responsibility

When one man says, “No, I won’t,” Rome begins to fear.

Dalton Trumbo

one-man rome men

A man doesn't say I will starve myself to death to keep from starving, or that he'd spend all of his money to save money. Why should he be willing to die for the privilege of living?

Dalton Trumbo

saving-money privilege men

If I were dead and buried And I heard your voice, Beneath the sod My heart of dust Would still rejoice.

Dalton Trumbo

voice dust heart

Everybody now seems to be talking about democracy. I don't understand this. As I think of it, democracy isn't like a Sunday suit to be brought out and worn only for parades. It's the kind of a life a decent man leads, it's something to live for and to die for.

Dalton Trumbo

sunday men thinking

Then there was this freedom the little guys were always getting killed for. Was it freedom from another country? Freedom from work or disease or death? Freedom from your mother-in-law? Please mister give us a bill of sale on this freedom before we go out and get killed. Give us a bill of sale drawn up plainly in advance what we're getting killed for... so we can be sure after we've won your war that we've got the same kind of freedom we bargained for.

Dalton Trumbo

mother war country

Hickory dickory dock my daddy’s nuts from shell shock. Humpty dumpty thought he was wise till gas came along and burned out his eyes. A dillar a dollar a ten o clock scholar blow off his legs and then watch him holler. Rockaby baby in the tree top don’t stop a bomb or you’ll probably flop. Now I lay me down to sleep my bombproof cellars good and deep but if I’m killed before I wake remember god its for your sake amen.

Dalton Trumbo

wise sleep baby

Now the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of things people don't understand. Take the Einstein theory. Take taxes. Take love. Do you understand them? Neither do I. But they exist. They happen.

Dalton Trumbo

truth matter people

The only interesting thing that can happen in a Swiss bedroom is suffocation by feather mattress.

Dalton Trumbo

bedroom travel interesting

This blacklisting is going to collapse because it is rotten, immoral and illegal. I am one day going to be working openly in the motion picture industry. When that day comes, I swear to you that I will never sign a term contract with any major studio. I will, proudly and by preference, do at least one picture a year for King Brothers, and I will try to make it the best picture that I have it in me to do

Dalton Trumbo

brother kings years

There are plenty of laws to protect guys' money even in war time but there's nothing on the books says a man's life's his own.

Dalton Trumbo

men war book

An animal can learn to fight, but to sing beautiful things and make people believe them.

Dalton Trumbo

music beautiful believe

It will come with a rush and a roar and a shudder. It will come howling and laughing and shrieking and moaning. It will come so fast you can’t help yourself you will stretch out your arms to embrace it. You will feel it before it comes and you will tense yourself for acceptance and the earth which is your eternal bed will tremble at the moment of your union.

Dalton Trumbo

acceptance earth laughing

A good businessman never makes a contract unless he's sure he can carry it through, yet every fool on earth is perfectly willing to sign a marriage contract without considering whether he can live up to it or not.

Dalton Trumbo

fool marriage earth

Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share.