Ernest Hemingway Quotes
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I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.
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Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.
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We in America should see that no man is ever given, no matter how gradually or how noble and excellent the man, the power to put this country into a war which is now being prepared and brought closer each day with all the pre-meditation of a long planned murder. For when you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.
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As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.
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Worry destroys the ability to write. Ill health is bad in the ratio that it produces worry which attacks your subconscious and destroys your reserves.
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Time is the least thing we have.
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The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before, and not too damned much after.
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If every one said orders were impossible to carry out when they were received where would you be? Where would we all be if you just said, "Impossible," when orders came?
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I did not understand them but they did not have any mystery, and when I understood them they meant nothing to me. I was sorry about this but there was nothing I could do about it.
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Anyone can be a fisherman in May.
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If you have to go away,' she said,'is it absolutely necessary to kill off everything you leave behind? I mean do you have to take away everything?
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Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.
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Worry destroys the ability to write.
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Courage is grace under pressure.
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The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.
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I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I knew about.
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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.
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And we could have all this,' she said. 'And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.' 'What did you say?' 'I said we could have everything.' 'We can have everything.' 'No, we can't.' 'We can have the whole world.' 'No, we can't.' 'We can go everywhere.' 'No, we can't. It isn't ours anymore.' 'It's ours.' 'No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back.
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I am one of those who like to stay late at the cafe," the older waiter said. "With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night." "I want to go home and into bed." "We are of two different kinds," the older waiter said. He was now dressed to go home. "It is not only a question of youth and confidence although those things are very beautiful. Each night. I am reluctant to close up because there may be someone who needs the cafe.
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No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things
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Romance was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes.
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Just as, with the radio, there are certain things that you become fond of,and you welcome them and resent the new things
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Sometimes you know the story. Sometimes you make it up as you go along and have no idea how it will come out.
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Imagination? It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine.