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Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Quotes

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Famous Ernest Hemingway Quotes

“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And 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.”

IfsKnowsLifeTwoLife IsTomorrowAskingComplainingYesterdayProportionGood LifeBiblicalTwo DaysStop Complaining
Book:For Whom the Bell Tolls
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“The fish is my friend too...I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky; he thought”

IfsMenShouldTryingRunningStarsNatureBornSunImagineHeardLuckyMoonMy FriendsShould HaveFishesGladEach DayOld ManRunning Away
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“I was always embarresed by the words 'sacred,' 'glorious,' and 'sacrifice' and the expression 'in vain.' We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stock yards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.”

IfsLongSometimesDoneBusinessHeardSacrificeExpressionLong TimeGloryRainStandingSacredVainMeatGloriousChicagoYardsSay AnythingProclamationFarewell To ArmsStanding In The Rain
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across—not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it. Things aren’t that way.”

IfsWayTryingBelieveWellsStoriesFeelingsBeautifulAliveUglyCriticizeBeautiful YouActual Life
Book:The Hemingway Collection
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“There is nothing you can do except try to write it the way that it was. So you must write each day better than you possibly can and use the sorrow that you have now to make you know how the early sorrow came. And you must always remember the things you believed because if you know them they will be there in the writing and you won’t betray them. The writing is the only progress you make.”

IfsKnowsWayWritingTryingUseRememberCan DoKnow HowProgressSorrowEach DayBetrayBetter Than You
Book:The Garden of Eden
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“When I had finished the book I knew that no matter what Scott did, nor how he behaved, I must know it was like a sickness and be of any help I could to him and try to be a good friend. He had many good, good friends, more than anyone I knew. But I enlisted as one more, whether I could be of any use to him or not. If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one. I did not know Zelda yet, and so I did not know the terrible odds that were against him. But we were to find them out soon enough.”

IfsKnowsWritingTryingBookMatterEnoughHelpingUseFineTerribleNo Matter WhatFinishedSicknessOddsGood FriendSoon EnoughEnlisted
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“And another thing. Don’t ever kid yourself about loving some one. It is just that most people are not lucky enough ever to have it. You never had it before and now you have it. What you have with Maria, whether it lasts just through today and a part of tomorrow, or whether it lasts for a long life is the most important thing that can happen to a human being. There will always be people who say it does not exist because they cannot have it. But I tell you it is true and that you have it and that you are lucky even if you die tomorrow.”

PeopleIfsHumansLongDoeImportantEnoughHappensKidsTodayLastsLife IsDiesHuman BeingsTomorrowLuckyImportant ThingsLong LifeBeing ThereBefore And Now
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot i.e. loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better) you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.”

IfsWantWritingMadeEnoughGovernmentOrderWishHurtDiedProsePatrioticLegendsLoyalPatriotIt HurtsSomething BetterStink
Book:Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961
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“You know lots of criticism is written by characters who are very academic and think it is a sign you are worthless if you make jokes or kid or even clown. I wouldn't kid Our Lord if he was on the cross. But I would attempt a joke with him if I ran into him chasing the money changers out of the temple.”

IfsThinkingKnowsCharacterKidsLordWrittenJokesCrossesCriticismRanTemplesAcademicWorthlessChasingClownOur LordLiterary Criticism
Book:The Good Life According to Hemingway
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“Madame, it is an old word and each one takes it new and wears it out himself. It is a word that fills with meaning as a bladder with air and the meaning goes out of it as quickly. It may be punctured as a bladder is punctured and patched and blown up again and if you have not had it does not exist for you. All people talk of it, but those who have had it are marked by it, and I would not wish to speak of it further since of all things it is the most ridiculous to talk of and only fools go through it many times.”

PeopleIfsLoveMayDoeSpeakWishAirFoolAll ThingsRidiculousConfusionTime LoveBladder
Book:The Hemingway Collection
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“My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.”

IfsShowsAbleGamesCan DoLosesDealsAttitudeOughtToolsGreenGolfImprovementCraftsConventionalYou Can Do ItGrammarLicenseMy AttitudePunctuationCroquet
Book:Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961
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“If the book is good, is about something that you know, and is truly written, and reading it over you see that this is so, you can let the boys yip and the noise will have that pleasant sound coyotes make on a very cold night when they are out in the snow and you are in your own cabin that you have built or paid for with your work.”

IfsKnowsBookNightReadingSoundBoysWrittenColdBuiltPaidCriticsSnowNoisePleasantOver YouEditorsCabinsCoyotesJoy Of ReadingCold Night
Book:By-Line Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades
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“Until the dead are buried they change somewhat in appearance each day. The color change in Caucasian races is from white to yellow, to yellow-green, to black. If left long enough in the heat the flesh comes to resemble coal-tar, especially where it has been broken or torn, and it has quite a visible tarlike iridescence. The dead grow larger each day until sometimes they become quite too big for their uniforms, filling these until they seem blown tight enough to burst. The individual members may increase in girth to an unbelievable extent and faces fill as taut and globular as balloons.”

IfsMayLongHas BeensWarSometimesEnoughBigsSeemsFacesIndividualLeftGrowsBlackWhiteRaceColorBrokenMembersIncreaseGreenAppearanceFleshHeatVisibleEach DayBuriedYellowUniformsCoalTornUnbelievableFillingBalloonsGreat WarCaucasianGirth
Book:Death in the Afternoon
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“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

IfsKnowsWritingMayDoeEnoughFeelingsWaterMovementReaderDignityDuesProseHollowIcebergTip Of The Iceberg
Author:Ernest Hemingway
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“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.”

IfsKnowsWayWritingTryingI CanHappensRememberNextNovelValuableStuckBest WayValuable Things
Book:By-Line Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades
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