Lillian Hellman on “if I had my life to live over”

    People of Lillian Hellman’s sort aren’t born every day. Such honesty about herself.

It is true that I miss Hammett, and that is as it should be. He was the most interesting man I ever met. I laugh at what he did say, amuse myself with what he might say, and even this many years later speak to him, often angry that he still interferes with me, still dictates the rules.
    But I am not yet old enough to like the past better than the present, although there are nights when I have a passing sadness for the unnecessary pains, the self-made foolishness that was, is, and will be. I do regret that I have spent too much of my life trying to find what I called “truth,” trying to find what I called “sense.” I never knew what I meant by truth, never made the sense I hoped for. All I mean is that I left too much of me unfinished because I wasted too much time. However.

    (Quoted from pages 279-280 of An Unfinished Woman -- a memoir, by Lillian Hellman. Little, Brown and Co., 1969.)
    For a brief biography of Lillian Hellman, click here. For images of or relating to Lillian Hellman, click here.
    For a brief biography of Dashiell Hammett, click here. For images of or relating to Dashiell Hammett, click here.