First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"What do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little. Dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall, and no one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed, and that's the end."
"When a man's collar is an inch too big for him I know he's ill."
"Believe me, Mr. Kringelein, a man who is not with a woman is a dead man."
"The Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go...nothing ever happens."
"I think Suzette, I've never been so tired in all my life.."
"Then we’ll go to Tremezzo. I have a villa there. The sun will shine! […] We’ll be happy and lazy. […] It will be divine ! Divine ! Divine !"
"To life! To the magnificent, dangerous, brief, brief, wonderful life...and the courage to live it! You know, Baron, I've only lived since last night, but that little while seems longer than all the time that's gone before."
"[to Preysing, after he tries to get 'familiar' with her by asking her to call him by his first name] You know I always say that nothing should be left hanging over. And names are like that. Suppose I met you next year and said, 'How do you do Mr. Preysing?' And you said, 'That's the young lady who was my secretary in Manchester.' That's all quite proper. But supposing I saw you and yelled 'Hi baby. Remember Manchester.' [he laughs] Yeah, and you were with your wife. How would you like that?"
"I don't know much about women. I've been married for 28 years, you know."
"Greta Garbo - Grusinskaya, the dancer"
"John Barrymore - the Baron Felix von Gaigern"
"Joan Crawford - Flaemmchen, the stenographer"
"Wallace Beery - General Director Preysing"
"Lionel Barrymore - Otto Kringelein"
"Lewis Stone - Dr Otternschlag"
"Jean Hersholt - Senf, the porter"
"Robert McWade - Meierheim"
"Purnell Pratt - Zinnowitz"
"Ferdinand Gottschalk - Pimenov"
"Rafaela Ottiano - Suzette"
"Morgan Wallace - the chauffeur"
"Tully Marshall - Gerstenkorn"
"Frank Conroy - Rohna"
"Murray Kinnell - Schweimann"
"Edwin Maxwell - Dr Waitz"
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.