Ernest Hemingway Quotes
-
If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.
-
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
-
What is the definition of guts? Grace under pressure.
-
I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring.
-
I write description in longhand because that's hardest for me and you're closer to the paper when you work by hand, but I use the typewriter for dialogue because people speak like a typewriter works.
-
Some people, when they hear an echo, think they originated the sound.
-
You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.
-
Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
-
When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.
-
When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. . . .When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have e made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.
-
A writer should be of as great probity and honesty as a priest of God. He is either honest or not, as a woman is either chaste or not, and after one piece of dishonest writing he is never the same again.
-
There is no night life in Spain. They stay up late but they get up late. That is not night life. That is delaying the day.
-
For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.
-
I was so sentimental about you I'd break any one's heart for you. My, I was a damned fool. I broke my own heart, too. It's broken and gone. Everything I believe in and everything I cared about I left for you because you were so wonderful and you loved me so much that love was all that mattered. Love was the greatest thing, wasn't it?
-
You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother.
-
When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky?
-
I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together
-
I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot i.e. loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better) you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.
-
If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed.
-
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
-
One cat just leads to another.
-
Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?
-
Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?
-
The best way is to read it all every day from the start, correcting as you go along, then go on from where you stopped the day before. When it gets so long that you can't do this every day read back two or three chapters each day; then each week read it all from the start. That's how you make it all of one piece.