Ernest Hemingway Quotes

“He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.”

“I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; or if not that then wonderful. Then you write for who you love whether she can read or write or not and whether she is alive or dead.”

“There are worse places to be than on your own.”

“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

“After you finish a book, you know, you're dead. But no one knows you're dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.”

“After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love.”

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”

“There are many good fishermen and some great ones. But there is only one you.”

“Some writers are only born to help another writer write one sentence.”

“I am so in love with you that there isn’t anything else.”

“All our words from loose using have lost their edge.”

“Never confuse movement with action.”

“A writer's problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and having found what is true, to project it is such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.”

“I felt the death loneliness that comes at the end of every day that is wasted in your life.”

“Tell me some true things about fighting.''Tell me you love me.''I love you,' the girl said. 'You can publish it in the Gazzettino if you like. I love your hard, flat body and your strange eyes that frighten me when they become wicked. I love your hand and all your other wounded places.”

“The cat has complete emotional honesty - an attribute not often found in humans.”

“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”

“Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time. I only use swear words, for example, that have lasted at least a thousand years for fear of getting stuff that will be simply timely and then go sour.”

“Man is not made for defeat.”

“You ought to dream. All our biggest businessmen have been dreamers.”

“Always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next.”

“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.”

“What is moral is what you feel good after.”

“I started out very quiet and I beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr. de Maupassant. I've fought two draws with Mr. Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody's going to get me in any ring with Mr. Tolstoy unless I'm crazy or I keep getting better.”