James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist who scripted many award-winning films, including Roman Holiday (1953), Exodus, Spartacus (both 1960), and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee’s investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. These Dalton Trumbo quotes will motivate you.
Best Dalton Trumbo Quotes
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “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.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
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“Democracy isn’t a gift. It’s a responsibility.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “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
- “The only kind of love worth having is the kind that goes on living and laughing and fighting and loving.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
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“If I were dead and buried And I heard your voice, Beneath the sod My heart of dust Would still rejoice.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “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
- “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
- “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
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“The only interesting thing that can happen in a Swiss bedroom is suffocation by feather mattress.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “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
- “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
- “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
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“An animal can learn to fight, but to sing beautiful things and make people believe them.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “There are plenty of laws to protect guys’ money even in wartime but there’s nothing on the books says a man’s life’s his own.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “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
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“One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you’re obliged to act like one” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “Nothing is bigger than life. There’s nothing noble in death. What’s noble about never seeing the sunshine again? What’s noble about having your legs and arms blown off? What’s noble about being an idiot? What’s noble about being blind and deaf and dumb? What’s noble about being dead?” ~ Dalton Trumbo quotes
- “Now listen, buddy, there are a few corny ideas you got to get out of your head if you’re going to fly an airplane. Most things are just the reverse from what people think. The higher you are the safer you are. The Earth down there, that, that-s your enemy because once you hit that, boy, you splatter.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “Bankers, nepotists, contracts and talkies: on four fingers one may count the leeches which have sucked a young and vigorous industry into paresis.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “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
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“I never considered the working class anything other than something to get out of.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “Now I lay me down to sleep my bomb-proof cellar’s good and deep but if I’m killed before I wake remember god it’s for your sake amen.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “There’s a game out there, and the stakes are high. And the guy who runs it figures the averages all day long and all night long. Once in a while, he lets you steal a pot. But if you stay in the game long enough, you’ve got to lose. And once you’ve lost there’s no way back, no way at all.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “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” ~ Dalton Trumbo
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“What’s so noble about being dead?” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “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
- “You show me a politician with his heels ten feet in the air, and by Judas priest, Ill show you an honest politician.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “I feel like my sixteenth birthday and the time I graduated from high school, and the first time I flew solo all wrapped up in one.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
- “Goodbye, my love, my life. Goodbye, goodbye.” ~ Dalton Trumbo
