First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"[on the telephone] Hello, Dutch? Bill O'Brien! Say listen, I'm over at the Pigeon Club takin' in the sights, and, uh, I ran into somethin' that I thought might be of mutual interest to us. An out-of-town job came shoo-shooing in here a while ago and throwin' away money like birdseed."
"I'm pretending there's something swell about you. This delusion came over me while we were dancing. You know, when you look into a girl's eyes and you think you see someone that isn't there... well that's what I saw."
"Oh, if only I had my slave costume and my chains!"
"[to Bill O'Brien] I'll remember this night for a long time. When things don't seem so good, I'll remember Mr. Gibbons, and Mr. Engle... and you."
"[seeing a waiter put two drinks on the table] Fine, fine! I no longer have to order drinks. I just attract them. He shall have liquor wherever he goes! [to Engle] As I understand from your communication, Mr. Engle, you're on the brink of self-destruction. May I shake your hand? A brilliant idea! I speak as one who has destroyed himself a score of times. I am, Mr. Engle, a veteran corpse. We are all corpses here! This rendezvous is one of the musical graveyards of the town. Caters to zombies hopping around with dead hearts and price tags for souls. Hmmmp! [offering him one of the drinks] Will you join me, sir? It is the custom here for the dead to drink - heavily! [drinks] Allow me to present my credentials as a fellow cadaver. I'm being divorced by my wife whom I love dearly in my own nasty way. I was disemboweled by another woman. I have written three bad plays in a row, and next year I'll write a worse one. I have neither a home, a single hope, nor a shred of curiosity left. Bankrupt and broke, I've destroyed myself, sir, in becoming famous. I am no longer a man, Mr. Engle, I'm an epitaph over an ash can! And now, sir, what's your story?"
"They'll deal you hope off the bottom."
"Yesterday's pain is tomorrow's joke. And you'll always end up laughing if you can manage not to cut your throat first."
"Stage Doorman: [looking out into the darkened, empty theater] Shhh! Hear that noise? That's the rats - always performing! If I left this scenery here, they'd eat it up - eat the whole theater up if it wasn't for the actors! The hollering frightens them."
"Douglas Fairbanks Jr. - Bill O'Brien"
"Rita Hayworth - Nina Barona"
"Thomas Mitchell - Eugene 'Gene' Gibbons"
"John Qualen - Charles Engle"
"George Watts - Joseph Hopper"
"Ralph Theodore - Dutch Enright"
"Eddie Foster - Louie Artino"
"Jack Roper - Eddie Burns"
"Constance Worth - Sylvia Marbe"
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.