A Quote by Bette Davis

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.
So much in TV today, you don't get to feel empathetic for the villain. The villains are the villains and the heroes are the heroes. It's very black and white.
The good old days were never that good, believe me. The good new days are today, and better days are coming tomorrow. Our greatest songs are still unsung.
I cannot agree with those who say that they have 'new truth' to teach. The two words seem to me to contradict each other; that which is new is not true. It is the old that is true, for truth is as old as God himself.
When people talk about the good old days, I say to people, 'It's not the days that are old, it's you that's old.' I hate the good old days. What is important is that today is good.
And there was that letter from the Bramleys—that really made me feel good. You don’t find people like the Bramleys now; radio, television and the motorcar have carried the outside world into the most isolated places so that the simple people you used to meet on the lonely farms are rapidly becoming like people anywhere else. There are still a few left, of course—old folk who cling to the ways of their fathers and when I come across any of them I like to make some excuse to sit down and talk with them and listen to the old Yorkshire words and expressions which have almost disappeared.
Today, they make films where you have to sit for an hour and a half and watch somebody in the process of dying and, for me, that's rather depressing. Films, in the good old days of the golden age of Hollywood, used to want to inspire people and give them uplift. You're paying good money to see a film, and you don't want to leave depressed!
It's a movie, OK? I went to see GONE WITH THE WIND, but did I really believe there was a guy named Rhett Butler who said, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"? No. Movies need heroes and villains, and real life doesn't usually have heroes and villains. Real life has a lot of shades of gray, and moves have black and white even when they're in color.
The President's biggest problem right now is he's gotta tell the truth. And we've seen this in New Jersey. I've told lots of hard truths in New Jersey that people didn't necessarily agree with, but they give you credit for looking them in the eye and telling them the truth.
It is much more fun to write about villains then heroes. The villains are the ones that think out the scheme, and the heroes just kind of come along for the ride.
For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies and cultures change. For the scientist, the goal of a theory is to convey "truth for now"--to replace an old truth, while accepting that someday this theory, too, will be replaced by a new "truth," because that is the way science advances.
Give me the new thing and give it to me now. I don't want that old thing - I've seen it, heard it, bought it, slept with it, loved it, but now I'm bored with the old thing and I'm gagging for the new stuff.
Your days are short here; this is the last of your springs. And now in the serenity and quiet of this lovely place, touch the depths of truth, feel the hem of Heaven. You will go away with old, good friends. And don't forget when you leave why you came.
In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don't want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.
Today we are fighting Communism. Okay. If I'd been alive fifty years ago, the brand of Conservatism we have today would have been damn near called Communism and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.
It was important to me that my heroes not be all good and my villains not be all bad.
Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.
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