Ernest Hemingway Quotes

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one`s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die for no good reason."

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

Never confuse movement with action.

I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

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

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.

Always do sober what you said you`d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so.

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don`t cheat with it.

As you get older, it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary

By "guts" I mean, grace under pressure

Cowardice... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

Develop a built-in bullshit detector.

Don`t you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your

Defense is the stronger form with the negative object, and attack the weaker form with the positive object.

Every man`s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don`t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

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.

All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.

In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.