Ernest Hemingway A History Talks Volume 1-1ssue 14

Ernest Hemingway Quote 1899-1961

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

“All thinking men are atheists.”

A Farewell to Arms

“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”

“But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ”

The Old Man and the Sea

“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”

“So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”

Death in the Afternoon

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.”

“It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”

“All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”

“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. ”

“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.”

“Do you suffer when you write? I don't at all. Suffer like a bastard when don't write, or just before, and feel empty and fucked out afterwards. But never feel as good as while writing.”

“The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

“If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed.”

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

The Old Man and the Sea

“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.”

“Death is like an old whore in a bar--I'll buy her a drink but I won't go upstairs with her”

To Have and Have Not

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”

“Remember to get the weather in your damn book--weather is very important.”