Ernest Hemingway

“it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short.”

“Everyone behaves badly--given the chance.”

“We had a Corsican wine that had great authority and a low price. It was a very Corsican wine and you could dilute it by half with water and still receive its message.A Moveable Feast”

“He'll never be frightened. He knows too damn much.”

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

“You are all a lost generation.[with credit to Gertrude Stein]”

“I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stock yards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.”

“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”

“There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.”

“You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.”

“Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything. ”

“If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.”

“In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.”

“My heart's broken,' he thought. 'If I feel this way my heart must be broken.”

“We have very primative emotions. It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.”

“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.”

“It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't.”

“But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”

“There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”

“The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without”

“Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog...all right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs.”

“you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

“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. . . . Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. . . . There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity. I do not understand these things, he thought. But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.”

“it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply.”

“This was a big storm and he might as well enjoy it. It was ruining everything, but you might as well enjoy it”

“Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.”

“I don't know. I only think the Austrians will not stop when they have won a victory. It is in defeat that we become Christian.""The Austrians are Christians-- except for the Bosnians.""I don't mean technically Christian. I mean like Our Lord."He said nothing."We are all gentler now because we are beaten. How would our Lord have been f Peter had rescued him in the Garden?”

“Wine is a grand thing," I said. "It makes you forget all the bad.”

“But life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose.”

“And you'll always love me won't you?YesAnd the rain won't make any difference? No”

“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.”

“You know I don't love any one but you. You shouldn't mind because some one else loved me.”

“Keep right on lying to me. That's what I want you to do.”

“When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me. She looked toward the door, saw there was no one, then she sat on the side of the bed and leaned over and kissed me.”

“When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”

“The professor at the boxing gymnasium wore mustaches and was very precise and jerky and went all to pieces if you started after him.”

“Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.”

“Strong in all the Broken Places”

“Cheer up,' I said. 'All countries look just like the moving pictures.”

“Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”

“Do you feel better?' he asked.'I feel fine,' she said. 'There's nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.”

“I don't feel any way,' the girl said. 'I just know things.”

“And we could have all this,' she said. 'And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.''What did you say?''I said we could have everything.''We can have everything.''No, we can't.''We can have the whole world.''No, we can't.''We can go everywhere.''No, we can't. It isn't ours anymore.''It's ours.''No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back.”

“If I do it you won't ever worry?''I won't worry about that because it's perfectly simple.'"Then I'll do it. Because I don't care about me.”

“I wanted to try this new drink: That's all we do, isn't it - look at things and try new drinks?”

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

“All things truly wicked start from innocence.”

“Be a damn fire eater now. He'd seen it in the war work the same way. More of a change than any loss of virginity. Fear gone like an operation. Something else grew in its place. Main thing a man had. Made him into a man. Women knew it too. No bloody fear.”

“None of it was important now. The wind blew it out of his head.”

“In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.”