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Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Quotes

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Famous Ernest Hemingway Quotes

“To me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors.”

WellsChildrenTwoDifferentBigsWould BeBeautifulHouseHeavenWifeAnd LoveTownsFishesMy WifeRingsLovelyNineStreamsSeatsMistressBullsTrout
Book:Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961
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“The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn, and anybody is cheating who takes politics as a way out. All the outs are too easy, and the thing itself is too hard to do.”

KnowsWayLifeWritingFirstsHumansHardEasyHuman BeingsKnow HowSubjectsHonestLifetimeHardestThings To DoProseCheatingHardest ThingHardest Thing To Do
Book:By-Line Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades
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“It is appearances, characteristics and performance that make a man love an airplane, and they, are what put emotion into one. You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn't any woman and there isn't any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane, and men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others. A man has only one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely plane he loses it to, there his heart will ever be.”

IfsMenHeartLosesEmotionPerformancesHorseAppearanceLovelyFlightFighterPlanesFaithfulCharacteristicsAviationAirplaneVirginityOne You Love
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“It's enough for you to do it once for a few men to remember you. But if you do it year after year, then many people remember you and they tell it to their children, and their children and grandchildren remember and, if it concerns books, they can read them. And if it's good enough, it will last as long as there are human beings.”

PeopleIfsMenYearsHumansChildrenLongBookEnoughLastsRememberHuman BeingsHistoryConcernExcellenceBe GoodGood EnoughGrandchildrenRemember YouRemembers YouChildren And Grandchildren
Book:The Good Life According to Hemingway
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“I was as afraid as the next man in my time and maybe more so. But with the years, fear had come to be regarded as a form of stupidity to be classed with overdrafts, acquiring a venereal disease or eating candies. Fear is a child's vice and while I loved to feel it approach, as one does with any vice, it was not for grown men and the only thing to be afraid of was the presence of true and imminent danger in a form that you should be aware of and not be a fool if you were responsible for others.”

IfsMenFeelsShouldYearsChildrenDoeFormNextFearDangerFoolDiseaseApproachEatingResponsibleVicesStupidityMy TimeCandyGrown Man
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).”

IfsThinkingNeedsShouldWritingI CanEndsCertainTimeThreeShould HaveLowestThree TimesSimileDictionaryDefectiveAmmunition
Book:Selected Letters, 1917-1961
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“I'm not advocating the strenuous life for everyone or trying to say it's the choice form of life. Anyone who's had the luck or misfortune to be an athlete has to keep his body in shape. The body and mind are closely coordinated. Fattening of the body can lead to fattening of the mind. I would be tempted to say that it can lead to fattening of the soul, but I don't know anything about the soul.”

KnowsTryingMindSoulBodyWould BeFormChoicesShapesLuckAthleteMisfortunesTemptedMind And BodyAdvocatingFattening
Book:Conversations with Ernest Hemingway
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“To invent out of knowledge means to produce inventions that are true. Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him. It also should have a manual drill and a crank handle in case the machine breaks down. If you're going to write, you have to find out what's bad for you. Part of that you learn fast, and then you learn what's good for you.”

IfsMenShouldWritingMeanBreakCasesProduceBuiltShould HaveMachinesEvery ManHandleInventionCrapBreaking DownManualsDrillsCrank
Book:Ernest Hemingway: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations
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“I wonder what your idea of heaven would be — A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows.”

IdeasWould BeBeautifulHeavenPoorPowerfulSecretWonderHellSorrowMembersFilledDrinkingUglyWealthyStomachDisorderVacuumsBoozeBest Family
Book:Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961
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“How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”

IfsWayWritingWellsHas BeensHelpingWould BePastLiteratureSimpleWrittenDrivenAnother WayGreat WritersWell Written
Book:Ernest Hemingway, Knut Hamsun [and] Hermann Hesse
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“Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer. Those who do not last are always more beloved since no one has to see them in their long, dull, unrelenting, no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, fights that they make to do something as they believe it should be done before they die. Those who die or quit early and easy and with every good reason are preferred because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.”

ShouldBelieveHumansWellsLongImportantReasonDoneLastsDiesFightingGivenEasyDifficultHonorSurvivalVery GoodQuittingBelovedDullQuartersCowardiceUnrelentingImportant Words
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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