"If a writer stops observing he is..." - Quote by Ernest Hemingway
If a writer stops observing he is finished. But he does not have to observe consciously nor think how it will be useful. Perhaps that would be true at the beginning. But later everything he sees goes into the great reserve of things he knows or has seen.
More by Ernest Hemingway
“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.”
“In those days, there was no money to buy books.”
“Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”
More on Writing
“Those who say truth is stranger than fiction have wasted their time on poorly written fiction.”
“It is in their 'good' characters that novelists make, unawares, the most shocking self- revelations.”
“From the moment I wrote 'Leaf Storm' I realized I wanted to be a writer and that nobody could stop me and that the only thing left for me to do was to try to be the best writer in the world.”