Ernest Hemingway Quotes

But people do. They love each other and they misunderstand on purpose and they fight and then suddenly they aren't the same one. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

During our last year in the mountains new people came deep into our lives and nothing was ever the same again. The winter of the avalanches was like a happy and innocent winter in childhood compared to the next winter, a nightmare winter disguised as the greatest fun of all, and the murderous summer that was to follow. It was that year that the rich showed up. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

If I had waited long enough I probably never would have written anything at all since there is a tendency when you really begin to learn something about a thing not to want to write about it but rather to keep on learning about it always and at no time, unless you are very egotistical, which, of course, accounts for many books, will you be able to say: now I know all about this and will write about it. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Did I know him? Did I love him? You ask me that? I knew him like you know nobody in the world, and I loved him like you love God. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

A big lie is more plausible than truth. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

It is silly not to hope, he thought. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Mice: But reading all the good writers might discourage you.
Y.C.: Then you ought to be discouraged. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I shouldn't have gone out so far, fish," he said. "Neither for you nor for me. I'm sorry, fish. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle's heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

That seemed to handle it. That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it all right. I went in to lunch. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

There was a trout. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The one experience that he had never had he was not going to spoil now. He probably would. You spoiled everything. But perhaps he wouldn't ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother. ~ Martha Gellhorn

For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere, heavy on the elbows in the earth to nowhere, dark, never any end to nowhere, hung on all time always to unknowing nowhere, this time and again for always to nowhere, now not to be borne once again always and to nowhere, now beyond all bearing up, up, up and into nowhere, suddenly, scaldingly, holdingly all nowhere gone and time absolutely still and they were both there, time having stopped and he felt the earth move out and away from under them. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

But she was delightful and charming and welcoming and behind her, as high as the wall and stretching out into the back room which gave onto the inner court of the building, were the shelves and shelves of the richness of the library. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

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. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair black as a crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The writer's job is to tell the truth, ~ Ernest Hemingway,

If a four-letter man marries a five-letter woman, he was thinking, what number of letters would their children be? ~ Ernest Hemingway,

It was not her fault that when he went to her he was already over ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I've never felt influenced by Ernest Hemingway though I suppose there is something inevitable there. ~ Jim Harrison

Are you a communist?"
"No I am an anti-fascist"
"For a long time?"
"Since I have understood fascism. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I'm going to stay with you. If you go to jail, we might as well both go. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

In every port in the world, at least two Estonians can be found. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

We are governed by what you find in the bottom of dead beer glasses that whores have dunked their cigarettes in. The place has not even been swept out yet and they have an amateur pianist beating on the box ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Memory is hunger. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

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. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The melon of Castile is for self abuse. The melon of Valencia for eating. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

He was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the ocean. He was sorry for the birds, especially the small delicate dark terns that were always flying and looking and almost never finding, and he thought, the birds have a harder life than we do except for the robber birds and the heavy strong ones. Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly, dipping and hunting, with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

She had been married to a man who had never bored her and these people bored her very much ~ Ernest Hemingway,

That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Then he began to pity the great fish that he had hooked. He is wonderful and strange and who knows how old he is, he thought. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

He held her close and hard and inside himself he said goodbye and then goodbye and goodbye. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I wish it had been a dream now and that I had never hooked the fish and was alone in bed on the newspapers. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

It was baking hot in the square when we came out after lunch with our bags and the rod-case to go to Burguete. People were on top of the bus, and others were climbing up a ladder. Bill went up and Robert sat beside Bill to save a place for me, and I went back in the hotel to get a couple of bottles of wine to take with us. When I came out the bus was crowded. Men and women were sitting on all the baggage and boxes on top, and the women all had their fans going in the sun. It certainly was hot. Robert climbed down and fitted into the place he had saved on the one wooden seat that ran across the top. Robert Cohn stood in the shade of the arcade waiting for us to start. A Basque with a big leather wine-bag in his lap lay across the top of the bus in front of our seat, leaning back against our legs. He offered the wine-skin to Bill and to me, and when I tipped it up to drink he imitated the sound of a klaxon motor-horn so well and so suddenly that spilled some of the wine, and everybody laughed. He apologized and made me take another drink. He made the klaxon again a little later, and it fooled me the second time. He was very good at it. The Basques liked it. The man next to Bill was talking to him in Spanish and Bill was not getting it, so he offered the man one of the bottles of wine. The man waved it away. He said it was too hot and he had drunk too much at lunch. When Bill offered the bottle the second time he took a long drink, and then the bottle went all over that part of ~ Ernest Hemingway

Good. Coffee is good for you. It's the caffeine in it. Caffeine, we are here. Caffeine puts a man on her horse and a woman in his grave. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

You bitch,' he said. 'You rich bitch. That's poetry. I'm full of poetry now. Rot and poetry. Rotten poetry. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The town was very nice and our house was very fine. The river ran behind us and the town had been captured very handsomely but the mountains beyond it could not be taken and I was very glad the Austrians seemed to want to come back to the town some time, if the war should end, because they did not bombard it to destroy it but only a little in a military way. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Before you quit, you have to try ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Before we take to the sea, we walk on land ... Before we create, we must understand ... ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Everything that's innocent to us is crazy to them. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

They arrested us after breakfast. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The fish is my friend too ... I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky; he thought ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Maybe ... you'll fall in love with me all over again."
"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"
"Yes. I want to ruin you."
"Good," I said. "That's what I want too. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you ... Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

At pier four there is a 34-foot yawl-rigged yacht with two of the three hundred and twenty-four Esthonians who are sailing around in different parts of the world, in boats between 28 and 36 feet long and sending back articles to the Esthonian newspapers. These articles are very popular in Esthonia and bring their authors between a dollar and a dollar and thirty cents a column. They take the place occupied by the baseball or football news in American newspapers and are run under the heading of Sagas of Our Intrepid Voyagers. No well-run yacht basin in Southern waters is complete without at least two sunburned, salt bleached-headed Esthonians who are waiting for a check from their last article. When it comes they will sail to another yacht basin and write another saga. They are very happy too. Almost as happy as the people on the Alzira III. It's great to be an Intrepid Voyager. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Some made the long drop from the apartment or the office window; some took it quietly in two-car garages with the motor running; some used the native tradition of the Colt or Smith and Wesson; those well-constructed implements that end insomnia, terminate remorse, cure cancer, avoid bankruptcy, and blast an exit from intolerable positions by the pressure of a finger; those admirable American instruments so easily carried, so sure of effect, so well designed to end the American dream when it becomes a nightmare, their only drawback the mess they leave for relatives to clean up. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

But life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The world breaks everyone or nearly everyone, of their childish illusions, assumptions and wishes, often painfully and afterwards due to the personal growth in practical experience, insight and the resulting wisdom many are strong at the broken places just like mended broken bones often are, and some people even have the great insight to be grateful for the purifying fire. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

THE MARVELLOUS THING IS THAT IT'S painless," he said. "That's how you know when it starts. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

To show his nervousness was not shameful; only to admit it. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

A writer's style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous. The greatest writers have the gift of brilliant brevity, are hard workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

[Ernest ]Hemingway always said, "Write about what you know." I think you can do that, and if you want to write about what you don't know, you can. It just takes a lot more work. ~ William T. Vollmann

I am drunk, seest thou? When I am not drunk I do not talk. You have never heard me talk much. But an intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend his time with fools. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Tis true what Hemingway says--if we're lucky enough to live our dreams in youth, as Ernest Hemingway did in 1920's Paris and I did with the Beat poets, then youth's dreams become a moveable feast you take wherever you go--youthful love remains the repast plentiful; exquisite, substantive and good. You can live on happy memories. Eat of them forever. ~ Alison Winfield Burns

All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with the first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife - second class - and the hotel where Verlaine had died where you had a room on the top floor where you worked. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

What are you called?" "Georgette. How are you called?" "Jacob." "That's a Flemish name." "American too." "You're not Flamand?" "No, American." "Good, I detest Flamands. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

He was a nice boy, a friendly boy, and very shy, and it made him bitter. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

It has been said that Ernest Hemingway would rewrite scenes
until they pleased him, often thirty or forty times. Hemingway,
critics claimed, was a genius. Was it his genius that drove
him to work hard, or was it hard work that resulted in works
of genius? ~ James N. Frey

You're remembering well today,' she said. 'Don't do it too much. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The best way to become a writer is to go off and write. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Worry destroys the ability to write. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it anymore. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I always like it at a war. There is always the chance that you will get up the next morning and be killed and not have to write. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

If you ever live to be as old as I am you will find many things strange." "You never seem old." "It is the body that is old. Sometimes I am afraid I will break off a finger as one breaks a stick of chalk. And the spirit is no older and not much wiser." "You are wise." "No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful." "Perhaps that is wisdom." "It is a very unattractive wisdom. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

But now he said his thoughts aloud many times since there was no one that they could annoy. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Until the dead are buried they change somewhat in appearance each day. The color change in Caucasian races is from white to yellow, to yellow-green, to black. If left long enough in the heat the flesh comes to resemble coal-tar, especially where it has been broken or torn, and it has quite a visible tarlike iridescence. The dead grow larger each day until sometimes they become quite too big for their uniforms, filling these until they seem blown tight enough to burst. The individual members may increase in girth to an unbelievable extent and faces fill as taut and globular as balloons. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Poor goddamned rummies,' Marie said. 'I pity a rummy.'
'He's a lucky rummy.'
'There ain't any lucky rummies,' Marie said. 'You know that, Harry.'
'No,' I said. 'I guess there aren't. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Who hasn't thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it? It's an option taken by a lot of successful people: Ernest Hemingway, Socrates, Jesus. Even before high school, I thought that it would be a cool thing to do if I ever got really famous. If I kept making my maps, for instance, and some art collector came across them and decided to make them worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, if I killed myself at the height of that, they'd be worth millions of dollars, and I wouldn't be responsible for them anymore. I'd have left behind something that spoke for itself. ~ Ned Vizzini

When you have two people who love each other, are happy and gay and really good work is being done by one or both of them, people are drawn to them as surely as migrating birds are drawn at night to a powerful beacon. If the two people were as solidly constructed as the beacon there would be little damage except to the birds. Those who attract people by their happiness and their performance are usually inexperienced. They do not know how not to be overrun and how to go away. They do not always learn about the good, the attractive, the charming, the soon-beloved, the generous, the understanding rich who have no bad qualities and who give each day the quality of a festival and who, when they have passed and taken the nourishment they needed, leave everything deader than the roots of any grass Attila's horses' hooves have ever scoured. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

They are not sorrows, so much as terrible things. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

If there's empty spaces in your heart,
They'll make you think it's wrong,
Like having empty spaces,
Means you never can be strong,
But I've learned that all these spaces,
Means there's room enough to grow,
And the people that once filled them,
Were always meant to be let go,
And all these empty spaces,
Create a strange sort of pull,
That attract so many people,
You wouldn't meet if they were full,
So if you're made of empty spaces,
Don't ever think it's wrong,
Because maybe they're just empty,
Until the right person comes along. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Make it all up. But make it up so truly that later it will happen that way. Ernest Hemingway ~ Ernest Hemingway

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.
(on Ernest Hemingway ~ William Faulkner

Every one needs to talk to some one," the woman said. "Before we had religion and other nonsense. Now for every one there should be some one to whom one can speak frankly, for all the valor that one could have one becomes very alone. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

It's a town you come to for a short time. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I'd say Ernest Hemingway would be a blast to get drunk with. ~ William Beckett

The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The setting of the sun is a difficult time for all fish. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

But in the night he woke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken from him. He held her feeling she was all of life there was and it was true. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I know now that there is no one thing that is true - it is all true. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

There are worse places to be than on your own. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

The boy Paco had never known about any of this nor about what all these people would be doing on the next day and on other days to come. He had no idea how they really lived nor how they ended. He did not even realize they ended. He died, as the Spanish phrase has it, full of illusions. He had not had time in his life to lose any of them, nor even, at the end, to complete an act of contrition. He had not even had time to be disappointed in the Garbo picture which disappointed all Madrid for a week. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so? ~ Ernest Hemingway

She was sick and when she was sick she was sick as Southern women are sick. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts. ~ Ernest Hemingway,