Ernest Hemingway Quotes

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

“I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time…”

“You don't have to destroy me. Do you?…”

“He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.”

“I'd like to destroy you a few times in bed.”

“Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet.”

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.”

“When I saw my wife again standing by the tracks as the train came in by the piled logs at the station, I wished I had died before I had ever loved anyone but her.”

“By "guts" I mean, grace under pressure”

“You never kill anyone you want to kill in a war, he said to himself.”

“Have faith in the Yankees my son. Think of the great DiMaggio.”

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to you and after which it all belongs to you.”

“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.”

“The shortest answer is doing the thing.”

“I do not need to get used to your silence. I already know it. I quite possibly love all of it.”

“One cat leads to another.”

“Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.”

“You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.”

“Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man.”

“I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other.”

“He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled…”

“The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.”

“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”

“You're awfully dark, brother," he said. "You don't know how dark.”

“The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life — and one is as good as the other.”

“It’s funny," I said. "It’s very funny. And it’s a lot of fun, too, to be in love."

"Do you think so?" her eyes looked flat again.

"I don’t mean fun that way. In a way it’s an enjoyable feeling."

"No," she said. "I think it’s hell on earth.”

“wonder what day god created the egg' 'how should we know? we should not question. our stay on earth is not for long. let us rejoice and believe and give thanks'. 'eat a egg”

“World War I was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth. Any writer who said otherwise lied, So the writers either wrote propaganda, shut up, or fought.”

“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

“Besides, I'm not jealous. I'm just so in love with you that there isn't anything else.”

“I am an old man who will live until I die," Anselmo said.”

“I suppose if a man has something once, always something of it remains.”

“The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.”

“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”

“Please love me David the way I am. Please understand and love me.”

“Only I have no luck any more. But who knows? Maybe today. 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.”

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”

“Each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all.”

“where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go.”

“I kissed her neck and shoulders. I felt faint with loving her so much.”

“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before, and not too damned much after.”

“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.”

“Strong in all the Broken Places”

“Not the why but the what.”

“You're my religion. You're all I've got.”

“There is no reason why because it is dark you should look at things differently from when it is light.”

“I have a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of my friends.”

“Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it.”

“The only kind of writing is rewriting.”

“If you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”