Ernest Hemingway Quotes
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The only decent bone in her body was mine.
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Something, or something awful or something wonderful was certain to happen on every day in this part of Africa.
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For a true writer each book should be a new beginning, where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment.
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For what are we born if not to aid one another?
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You make something from things that have happened and from things that exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, and you make something through your invention that is truer than anything true and alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.
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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.
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Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can.
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Write the story, take out all the good lines, and see if it still works.
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As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.
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I kissed her hard and held her tight and tried to open her lips; they were closed tight.
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Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man.
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There are so many good ones to paint and if you paint as well as you really can and keep out of all other things and do that, it is the true thing.
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Men cannot act before the camera in the presence of death.
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When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.
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As in no other form of lute or combat, the conditions are such; the winner takes nothing, neither his ease, nor his pleasure, nor any notion of glory, nor if he wins far enough, will he find anything within himself.
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Everything that a painter did or that a writer wrote was a part of his training and preparation for what he was to do.
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Develop a built-in bullshit detector.
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But you always fall for somebody else and then it's all right. Fall for them but don't let them ruin you.
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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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It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.
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Once in Africa I lost the corkscrew and we were forced to live off food and water for weeks.
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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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There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.
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Some other places were not so good but maybe we were not so good when we were in them.