Ernest Hemingway Quotes
-
Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten.
-
A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.
-
In a power hungry, power worshipping society, men label themselves atheist.
-
Fortunately I have never learned to take the good advice I give myself nor the counsel of my fears.
-
All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you. Especially do all stories of monogamy end in death, and your man who is monogamous while he often lives most happily, dies in the most lonely fashion.
-
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 is it is cool and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit again.
-
Oh, darling, I've been so miserable.
-
It is silly not to hope, besides I believe it is a sin." The Old Man and the Sea
-
As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.
-
I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across—not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it. Things aren’t that way.
-
You are all a lost generation. [with credit to Gertrude Stein]
-
There is no rule on how to write.
-
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.
-
There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.
-
The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them.
-
Keep right on lying to me. That's what I want you to do.
-
There is no such thing as great writing - there is only great re-writing!
-
You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.
-
Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything.
-
Live it up so you can write it down.
-
I might say that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardnesses in first trying to make something that has not heretofore been made. Almost no new classics resemble other previous classics. At first people see only the awkwardness. Then they are not so perceptible. When they show so very awkwardly people think these awkwardnesses are the style and many copy them. This is regrettable.
-
You're beautiful, like a May fly.
-
Optimism can keep a fool from accepting failure.
-
Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.