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Ernest Hemingway Quotes
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501 Quotes for Timeless Wisdom on Love, Happiness, and Writing

Uncover Hemingway's timeless wisdom. His iconic quotes explore love, happiness, writing, and self-discovery. Experience the profound complexity and beauty of life through his inspiring words.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an influential American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist known for his economical and understated writing style. His work, which embodied his iceberg theory, had a significant impact on 20th-century fiction. Hemingway lived a daring lifestyle and cultivated a public image that earned him admiration from subsequent generations. He received the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 for his contributions to the literary world. Over his career, Hemingway published an impressive body of work that includes seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction books. Several more of his works were released posthumously, solidifying his place as one of America's literary greats.

Raised in Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway briefly worked as a reporter for The Kansas City Star after finishing high school. However, he soon decided to enlist as an ambulance driver during World War I and served on the Italian Front. Unfortunately, he sustained severe wounds in 1918 and returned home. These wartime experiences heavily influenced his acclaimed novel A Farewell to Arms. In 1921, Hemingway married Hadley Richardson before moving to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. During this time, he came into contact with the modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community in Paris—an experience that profoundly shaped his writing style. He published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, in 1926 and subsequently divorced Richardson before marrying Pauline Pfeiffer. His coverage of the Spanish Civil War fueled his book For Whom the Bell Tolls while also resulting in another divorce with Pfeiffer. Later on, Martha Gellhorn became Hemingway's third wife until they separated when he met Mary Welsh during World War II in London. As a journalist covering significant historical events like the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris alongside Allied troops, Hemingway played an active role in war reportage. He had permanent residences in Key West, Florida throughout the 1930s and in Cuba during the 1940s and 1950s. Hemingway's life took a tragic turn during a trip to Africa in 1954 when he was involved in two plane accidents within consecutive days that left him with lifelong pain and health issues. Ultimately, he died by suicide at his house in Ketchum, Idaho, in mid-1961.

✵ 21. July 1899 – 2. July 1961  •  Other names Ernest Miller Hemingway, Ernst Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway photo
Ernest Hemingway: 501 quotes92 likes

Ernest Hemingway Quotes

“But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.”

Ernest Hemingway

Source: A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition

“No one you love is ever truly lost.”

Ernest Hemingway

“I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“Going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

“Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?”

Ernest Hemingway book Men Without Women

Source: Men Without Women

“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 book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

“Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“It's silly not to hope. It's a sin he thought.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

“You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Variant: I belong to this notebook and this pencil.
Source: A Moveable Feast

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”

Ernest Hemingway

New York Journal-American (11 July 1961)
Source: The Wild Years

“He would lie in the bed and finally, with daylight, he would go to sleep. After all, he said to himself, it is probably only insomnia. Many must have it.”

Ernest Hemingway

Source: A Clean Well Lighted Place

“The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.”

Ernest Hemingway

“Everyone behaves badly--given the chance.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

“The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.”

Ernest Hemingway

“If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“You've such a lovely temperature.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

“We're stronger in the places that we've been broken.”

Ernest Hemingway

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

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

“Oh, darling, you will be good to me, won’t you? Because we’re going to have a strange life.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

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

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

“Listen," I told him. "Don't be so tough so early in the morning. I'm sure you've cut plenty of people's throats. I haven't even had my coffee yet.”

Ernest Hemingway book To Have and Have Not

Source: To Have and Have Not

“This is a good place," he said.
"There's a lot of liquor," I agreed.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

“I had an inheritance from my father,
It was the moon and the sun.
And though I roam all over the world,
The spending of it’s never done.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

“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.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.”

Ernest Hemingway

Nobel Prize Speech (1954)

“They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 11

“Any man's life, told truly, is a novel…”

Ernest Hemingway book Death in the Afternoon

Source: Death in the Afternoon

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

Ernest Hemingway

Source: The Complete Short Stories

“I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.”

Ernest Hemingway

“Intelligence is so damn rare and the people who have it often have such a bad time with it that they get bitter or propagandistic and then it's not much use.”

Ernest Hemingway

“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.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

“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.”

Ernest Hemingway

“Everybody has strange things that mean things to them. You couldn't help it.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

Source: The Garden of Eden

“For what are we born if not to aid one another?”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

“I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.”

Ernest Hemingway

“Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize her?”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“I'm with you. No matter what else you have in your head I'm with you and I love you.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

Source: The Garden of Eden

“When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.”

Ernest Hemingway book True at First Light

Source: True at First Light (1999), Ch. 12

“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 you know."”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 2

“Fish," he said softly, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary…”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast