Ernest Hemingway Quotes
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Having books published is very destructive to writing.
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Experiencing differences is crucial to the human condition. Especially when that difference is over the head, blower powder.
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He remembered poor Julian [actually F. Scott Fitzgerald] and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, "The very rich are different from you and me." And how someone had said to Julian, "Yes, they have more money."
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The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.
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The people that I liked and had not met went to the big cafes because they were lost in them and no one noticed them and they could be alone in them and be together.
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The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see whether you believed it or not.
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Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?
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If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.
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By then I knew that everything good and bad left an emptiness when it stopped. But if it was bad, the emptiness filled up by itself. If it was good you could only fill it by finding something better.
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You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?
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Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you quit, try.
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You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.
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And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, the thought.
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I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another's company and aid in consultation.
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A big lie is more plausible than truth.
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People fall in love, but have to climb out.
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Life is the best left hooker I ever saw, although some say it was Charlie White of Chicago
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My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine.
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There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only one you.
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It is very bad for (an artist) to talk about how he (creates). It is not the (artist's) province to explain or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work. It's none of their business that you had to learn. Let them think you were born that way.
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In order to be a great writer a person must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector.
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I hate a cramp, he thought. It is a treachery of one's own body.
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In the spring mornings I would work early while my wife still slept. The windows were open wide and the cobbles of the street were drying after the rain.
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I love you and I always will and I am sorry. What a useless word.