Martha Gellhorn Quotes

Martha Ellis Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist, who is now considered one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century. She reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career. Gellhorn was also the third wife of American novelist Ernest Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945. At the age of 89, ill and almost completely blind, she died in 1998 in an apparent suicide. The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism is named after her.

✵ 8. November 1908 – 15. February 1998
Martha Gellhorn photo
Martha Gellhorn: 8 quotes4 likes

Famous Martha Gellhorn Quotes

“It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.”

Martha Gellhorn

Letter as quoted in "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life" (2003) written by Caroline Moorehead.
Context: War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

“War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever.”

Martha Gellhorn

Letter as quoted in "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life" (2003) written by Caroline Moorehead.
Context: War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

“Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.”

Martha Gellhorn

"Travels with Myself and Another: A Memoir" (1978) by Martha Gellhorn.
Source: Travels With Myself and Another

“The only way I can pay back for what fate and society have handed me is to try, in minor totally useless ways, to make an angry sound against injustice.”

Martha Gellhorn

Letter as quoted in "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life" (2003) written by Caroline Moorehead, pg. 142.

Similar authors

Franklin D. Roosevelt photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt190
32nd President of the United States None
John F. Kennedy photo
John F. Kennedy469
35th president of the United States of America None
Arthur Miller photo
Arthur Miller147
playwright from the United States None
George S. Patton photo
George S. Patton77
United States Army general None
Italo Calvino photo
Italo Calvino44
Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels None
Donald J. Trump photo
Donald J. Trump904
45th President of the United States of America None
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
Eleanor Roosevelt148
American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady… None
Ben Carson photo
Ben Carson191
17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urb… None
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower173
American general and politician, 34th president of the Unit… None
Ronald Reagan photo
Ronald Reagan264
American politician, 40th president of the United States (i… None