Quotes & Sayings About Hemingway

My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine. — Ernest Hemingway,

You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad. — Ernest Hemingway,

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over. — Ernest Hemingway,

I only like two other things; one is bad for my work and the other is over in half an hour or fifteen minutes. Sometimes less. Sometimes a good deal less. — Ernest Hemingway,

You've got a lovely everything. — Ernest Hemingway,

People have invoked the ghost of Hemingway quite a few times in writing about the book. I could get into sticky territory here if I let myself go on about this subject. The more I hear it, the more it rankles, frankly. — Ron Currie Jr.

You cannot stop trusting people in life but I have learned to be a little bit careful. The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them. — Ernest Hemingway,

The rain will stop, the night will end, the hurt will fade. Hope is never so lost that it can't be found. — Ernest Hemingway,

Publishing is not, of course, dependent on the individual taste of the publisher," Perkins replied to one reader of Hemingway's novel. "He is under an obligation to his profession which binds him to bring out a work which in the judgment of the literary world is significant in its literary qualities and is a pertinent criticism of the civilization of the time. — A. Scott Berg

Nick did not want to go in there now. He felt a reaction against deep wading with the water deepening up under his armpits, to hook big trout in places impossible to land them. In the swamp the banks were bare, the big cedars came together overhead, the sun did not come through, except in patches; in the fast deep water, in the half light, the fishing would be tragic. In the swamp fishing was a tragic adventure. Nick did not want it. He did not want to go down the stream any farther today. He — Ernest Hemingway,

He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on. — Ernest Hemingway,

It is one thing to be in the proximity of death, to know more or less what she is, and it is quite another thing to seek her. — Ernest Hemingway,

Nobody knows what's in him until he tries to pull it out. — Ernest Hemingway,

I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. — Ernest Hemingway,

I felt very lonely when they were all there. — Ernest Hemingway,

The professor at the boxing gymnasium wore mustaches and was very precise and jerky and went all to pieces if you started after him. — Ernest Hemingway,

My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements. — Ernest Hemingway,

Write drunk; edit sober. — Peter De Vries

His choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries. My choice was to go there to find him beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world. Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us. — Ernest Hemingway,

It was not brilliant bull-fighting. It was only perfect bull-fighting. — Ernest Hemingway,

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war. — Ernest Hemingway,

Some websites accepted each quote we create — Ernest Hemingway,

of Esquire contained an article entitled "On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter," written by the magazine's — Ernest Hemingway,

Bigotry is an odd thing. To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence. Continence is the foe of heresy. — Ernest Hemingway,

I think people are always like, 'She's a model-turned-actress.' And I don't want to turn actress. I want to do both. I wouldn't have built the confidence to do acting if I didn't model. — Dree Hemingway

Our host drifted away, and Vidia and I continued chatting about this and that. Swift judgments came down. The simplicity in Hemingway was "bogus" and nothing, Vidia said, like his own. Things Fall Apart was a fine book, but Achebe's refusal to write about his decades in America was disappointing. Heart of Darkness was good, but structurally a failure. I asked him about the biography by Patrick French, The World Is What It Is, which he had authorized. He stiffened. That book, which was extraordinarily well written, was also shocking in the extent to which it revealed a nasty, petty, and insecure man. "One gives away so much in trust," Vidia said. "One expects a certain discretion. It's painful, it's painful. But that's quite all right. Others will be written. The record will be corrected." He sounded like a boy being brave after gashing his thumb. The — Teju Cole

Augustin stood there looking down at him and cursed him speaking slowly clearly bitterly and contemptuously and cursing as steadily as though he were dumping manure on a field lifting it with a dung fork out of a wagon. — Ernest Hemingway,

I wasn't looking for another marriage. I had been married before. He is a nice man - a geologist, an Ernest Hemingway type. But Paul and I married because of convention. — Linda McCartney

I love you for all that you are, all that you have been, all that you're yet to be. — Ernest Hemingway,

I really, honest to God, didn't know what to read until I was out of college and living in Boston, and someone said, 'Well, why don't you read Hemingway?' And I thought, 'OK. I guess I'll try this Hemingway fellow.' — Tom Drury

Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.' Then he added, 'Blessed Virgin, pray for the death of this fish wonderful though he is. — Ernest Hemingway,

Memory is hunger. — Ernest Hemingway,

Oh Daddy, can't you give her something to make her stop screaming?" asked Nick.
"No. I haven't any anesthetic," his father said. "But her screams are not important. I don't hear them because they are not important."
-Indian Camp- — Ernest Hemingway,

In the night he awoke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken away from him. — Ernest Hemingway,

There is milk? What luxury! — Ernest Hemingway,

And remember the old dogs
who fought so well:
Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.
If you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms
just like you're doing now
without women
without food
without hope
then you're not ready.
drink more beer.
there's time.
and if there's not
that's all right
too. — Charles Bukowski

I'm not unfaithful, darling. I've plenty of faults but I'm very faithful. You'll be sick of me I'll be so faithful. — Ernest Hemingway,

Hemingway, whenever he was stuck in his writing, would tell himself to write one true thing. A true sentence. Then, he would write another. And another. It — Kamal Ravikant

You're beautiful. You walk wonderfully and if I were here and saw you now for the first time I'd be in love with you. If I saw you for the first time everything would turn over inside of me and I'd ache right through my chest. — Ernest Hemingway,

To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material. — Ernest Hemingway,

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

You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. — Ernest Hemingway,

A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl. — Ernest Hemingway,

There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story.
(Interview with Paris Review, 1958) — Ernest Hemingway,

What a writer has to do is write what hasn't been written before or beat dead men at what they have done. — Ernest Hemingway,

I have a graduate degree from Penn State. I studied at Penn State under a noted Hemingway scholar, Philip Young. I had an interest in thrillers, and it occurred to me that Hemingway wrote many action scenes: the war scenes in 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' come to mind. But the scenes don't feel pulpy. — David Morrell

To win a war, we must kill our enemies. — Ernest Hemingway,

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. — Ernest Hemingway,

Everyone needs to take control of his or her own life by making sense of it. It doesn't matter how conventional or unconventional that process is. — Mariel Hemingway

The things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist. — Ernest Hemingway,

[Hemingway] always used to bawl me out for including so much topical stuff. He always claimed that was a great mistake, that in fifty years nobody would understand. He may have been right; it's getting to be true. — John Dos Passos

Should I pity so and so?" I asked. I gave his name but he delights so in giving it himself that I feel there is no need to give it for him.
"No. He's vicious. He's a corrupter and he's truly vicious."
"But he's supposed to be a good writer."
"He's not," she said. "He's just a showman and he corrupts for the pleasure of corruption and he leads people into other vicious practices as well. — Ernest Hemingway,

She wanted to know what American writers I liked. "Hawthorne, Henry James, Emily Dickinson ... " "No, living." Ah, well, hmm, let's see: how difficult, the rival factor being what it is, for a contemporary author, or would-be author, to confess admiration for another. At last I said, "Not Hemingway - a really dishonest man, the closet-everything. Not Thomas Wolfe - all that purple upchuck; of course, he isn't living. Faulkner, sometimes: Light in August. Fitzgerald, sometimes: Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Tender Is the Night. I really like Willa Cather. Have you read My Mortal Enemy?" With no particular expression, she said, "Actually, I wrote it. — Truman Capote

Whether in light touches or for a more glamorous look, I never go out without make-up - even if it's only a lick of mascara. And I always wear perfume, a light or more intense version. — Dree Hemingway

And this was the price you paid for sleeping together. — Ernest Hemingway,

One battle doesn't make a campagin, but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole war. — Ernest Hemingway,

I was 17 when I decided to write stories as big as cathedrals, overflowing with the kind of memorable and audacious characters Walker Percy, Ernest Hemingway and Saul Bellow created. — Philip Schultz

The writer's job is to tell the truth, — 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,

it in those days. — Ernest Hemingway,

Wars are Spinach. Life in general is the tough part. In war all you have to do is not worry and know how to read a map and co-ordinates. — Ernest Hemingway,

I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it. — Ernest Hemingway,

Blood is thicker than water,
The young man said
As he knifed his friend
For a drooling old bitch
And a house full of lies. — Ernest Hemingway,

Life is pain, so live it up while you can. — Ernest Hemingway,

I'm fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn't tell you that in New York. It'd mean I was a faggot. That was what the Civil War was about. Abraham Lincoln was a faggot. He was in love with General Grant. So was Jefferson Davis. Lincoln just freed the slaves on a bet. — Ernest Hemingway,

The dentuso is cruel and able and strong and intelligent. But I was more intelligent than he was. Perhaps not, he thought. Perhaps I was only better armed. — Ernest Hemingway,

I like simple writing. I'd rather read Hemingway than Burroughs. — Yannis Philippakis

All the contact I have had with politics has left me feeling as though I had been drinking out of spitoons. — Ernest Hemingway,

I say to people, keep it simple. If you want to change your food, change your breakfast. — Mariel Hemingway

Am as clear as the stars that are my brothers. Still I must sleep. They sleep and the moon and the sun sleep and even the ocean sleeps sometimes on certain days when there is no current and a flat calm. — Ernest Hemingway,

I wonder if he has any plans or if he is just as desperate as I am? — Ernest Hemingway,

I'm not that old, and I haven't lived a life so far from the ordinary, really. — Mariel Hemingway

She looked fresh and young and very beautiful. I thought I had never seen any one so beautiful. 'Hello,' I said. When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me — Ernest Hemingway,

Everything that a painter did or that a writer wrote was a part of his training and preparation for what he was to do. — Ernest Hemingway,

If you can do this you are beginning to get what you are trying for, which is to make something that will become a part of the reader's experience and a part of his memory. — Ernest Hemingway,

Everyone given the right opportunity will behave badly. — Ernest Hemingway,

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 is was all about. — Ernest Hemingway,

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

The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed animals — Ernest Hemingway,

Finishing is what you have to do. If you don't finish, nothing is worth a damn — Ernest Hemingway,

I don't have any tattoos - I live vicariously through my sister, Langley, who has many. If I can't stick to one ensemble, I don't think I could stick to one tattoo. — Dree 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,

Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the discomforts that you paid to make it real, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be in it and to move slowly. — Ernest Hemingway,

I did Star 80, which was a magnificent experience as well, but still, I was at the height of my career at the beginning. Then I had to jump down the ladder and climb back up again, which I didn't understand. That was very hard. — Mariel Hemingway

I think Hemingway's [book] titles should be awarded first prize in any contest. Each of them is a poem, and their mysterious power over readers contributes to Hemingway's success. His titles have a life of their own, and they have enriched the American vocabulary. — Sylvia Beach

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. — Ernest Hemingway,

A person with increasing knowledge and sensory education may derive infinite enjoyment from wine. — Ernest Hemingway,

After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day. — Ernest Hemingway,

I would say just start writing. You've got to write every day. Copy someone that you like if you think that perhaps could become your sound, too. I did that with Hemingway, and I thought I was writing just like Hemingway. Then all of a sudden it occurred to me - he didn't have a sense of humor. I don't know anything he's written that's funny. — Elmore Leonard

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

Never mistake motion for action. — Ernest Hemingway,

Where do the noses go? I always wondered where the noses would go. — Ernest Hemingway,

First, there must be talent ... Then there must be discipline ... Then there must be ... and absolute conscience ... to prevent faking. — Ernest Hemingway,

I think you have more fun as a human being even though it is much more painful. — Ernest Hemingway,

Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. — Ernest Hemingway,

My mother says I used to breast-feed in a split. — Dree Hemingway

But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again (I hope), ... — Ernest Hemingway,

To invent out of knowledge means to produce inventions that are true. Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him. It also should have a manual drill and a crank handle in case the machine breaks down. If you're going to write, you have to find out what's bad for you. Part of that you learn fast, and then you learn what's good for you. — Ernest Hemingway,

Vaguely he wanted a girl but he did not want to have to work to get her. He would have liked to have a girl but he did not want to have to spend a long time getting her. He did not want to get into the intrigue and the politics. He did not want to have to do any courting. He did not want to tell any more lies. It wasn't worth it. — Ernest Hemingway,

To stay in places and to leave, to trust, to distrust, to no longer believe and believe again, ... to watch the snow come, to watch it go, to hear rain on a tent, to know where I can find what I want. — Ernest Hemingway,