Ernest Hemingway
I never liked to hunt, you know. There was always the danger of having a horse fall on you.Collection: Horse
Clearly I miss Him, having been brought up in religion. But now a man must be responsible to himself.Collection: Men
I would take anything I love and throw it off the highest cliff you ever saw and not wait to hear it bounce.Collection: Waiting
Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.Collection: Numbers
Oh, darling, I've been so miserable.Collection: Miserable
And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, the thought.Collection: Bed
You are all a lost generation. [with credit to Gertrude Stein]Collection: Gertrude
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.Collection: Dream
Real seriousness in regard to writing being one of the two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.Collection: Real
Having books published is very destructive to writing.Collection: Book
And this was the price you paid for sleeping together.Collection: Sleep
I don't feel any way,' the girl said. 'I just know things.Collection: Girl
Please tell me what can I do. There must be something I can doCollection: Please
It's silly not to hope. It's a sin he thought.Collection: Silly
He did not say that because he knew that if you said a good thing it might not happen.Collection: Might
The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, confident loving eyes.Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Rain
The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.Collection: Suicide
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.Collection: Drinking
You never kill any one that you want to kill in a war, he said to himself.Collection: War
There was no really good true war book during the entire four years of the war. The only true writing that came through during the war was in poetry. One reason for this is that poets are not arrested as quickly as prose writers.Collection: War
I was blown up while we were eating cheese.Collection: Arms
Il faut d'abord durer (First One Must Endure).Collection: Endurance
Always quit for the day when you know what you want to do next.Collection: Finishing
It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write.Collection: Notebook
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.Collection: Doors
Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe.Collection: Thinking
Nobody knows what's in him until he tries to pull it out. If there's nothing, or very little, the shock can kill a man.Collection: Men
No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.Collection: Humility
He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.Collection: Too Much
Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can.Collection: Writing
When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.Collection: Power
The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.Collection: Dog
A writer should be of as great probity and honesty as a priest of God. He is either honest or not, as a woman is either chaste or not, and after one piece of dishonest writing he is never the same again.Collection: Honesty
Here is the piece. If you can't say fornicate can you say copulate or if not that can you say co-habit? If not that would have to say consummate I suppose. Use your own good taste and judgment.Collection: Funny
Of all men the drunkard is the foulest. The thief when he is not stealing is like another. The extortioner does not practice in the home. The murderer when he is at home can wash his hands. But the drunkard stinks and vomits in this own bed and dissolves his organs in alcohol.Collection: Home
Wine is a grand thing," I said. "It makes you forget all the bad.Collection: Wine
The most beautiful fighting machine I have ever seenCollection: Beautiful
We who have seen him now, light on his feet, smooth moving as a leopard, a young man with an old man's science, the most beautiful fighting machine I have ever seen, may live to see him fat, slow, old, and bald taking a beating from a younger man. But I would like to hazard a prediction that whoever beats Joe Louis in an honest fight in the next fifteen years will have to get up the floor to do it.Collection: Beautiful
Nobody that ever left their own country ever wrote anything worth printing. Not even in the newspapers.Collection: Country
And we could have all this,' she said. 'And we could have everything and every day we make it more impossible.' 'What did you say?' 'I said we could have everything.' 'We can have everything.' 'No, we can't.' 'We can have the whole world.' 'No, we can't.' 'We can go everywhere.' 'No, we can't. It isn't ours anymore.' 'It's ours.' 'No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back.Collection: World
Ronda is the place where to go, if you are planning to travel to Spain for a honeymoon or for being with a girlfriend. The whole city and its surroundings are a romantic set. ... Nice promenades, good wine, excellent food, nothing to do.Collection: Girlfriend
Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones.Collection: Pain
For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.Collection: Baby
When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. . . . Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion and you know it can happen to you. After being severely wounded two weeks before my nineteenth birthday I had a bad time until I figured out that nothing could happen to me that had not happened to all men before me. Whatever I had to do men had always done. If they had done it then I could do it too and the best thing was not to worry about it.Collection: War
Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for.Collection: Lakes
In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.Collection: Running
Why, darling, I don't live at all when I'm not with you.Collection: Farewell To Arms
For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.Collection: Book