Ernest Hemingway Quotes
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Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).
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That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.
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Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man.
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All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.
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When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
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Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can.
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For what are we born if not to aid one another?
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Develop a built-in bullshit detector.
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You are all a lost generation. [with credit to Gertrude Stein]
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Take a good rest, small bird," he said. "Then go in and take your chance like any man or bird or fish.
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Those who say they want to be writers, and aren’t writing, don’t.
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The great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.
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We have very primitive emotions,” he said . “It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.
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But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.
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Please tell me what can I do. There must be something I can do
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There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
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No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.
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He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.
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Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.
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Find the best writers, pay them to write, and avoid typos at all costs.
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A writer without a sense of justice or injustice would be better off editing the yearbook for a school for exceptional children.
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Love is infinitely more endurable than hate.
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I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.
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Everything that's innocent to us is crazy to them.