Hemingway Quotes

“I've been wondering about Dostoyevsky. How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply?”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“He was not in love yet, but he realized that he was an attractive quantity to women, and that the fact of a woman caring for him and wanting to live with him was not simply a divine miracle.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

“Saturday evening, on a quiet lazy afternoon, I went to watch a bullfight in Las Ventas, one of Madrid's most famous bullrings. I went there out of curiosity. I had long been haunted by the image of the matador with its custom made torero suit, embroidered with golden threads, looking spectacular in his "suit of light" or traje de luces as they call it in Spain. I was curious to see the dance of death unfold in front of me, to test my humanity in the midst of blood and gold, and to see in which state my soul will come out of the arena, whether it will be shaken and stirred, furious and angry, or a little bit aware of the life embedded in every death. Being an avid fan of Hemingway, and a proponent of his famous sentence "About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after,” I went there willingly to test myself. I had heard atrocities about bullfighting yet I had this immense desire to be part of what I partially had an inclination to call a bloody piece of cultural experience. As I sat there, in front of the empty arena, I felt a grandiose feeling of belonging to something bigger than anything I experienced during my stay in Spain. Few minutes and I'll be witnessing a painting being carefully drawn in front of me, few minutes and I will be part of an art form deeply entrenched in the Spanish cultural heritage: the art of defying death. But to sit there, and to watch the bull enter the arena… To watch one bull surrounded by a matador and his six assistants. To watch the matador confronting the bull with the capote, performing a series of passes, just before the picador on a horse stabs the bull's neck, weakening the neck muscles and leading to the animal's first loss of blood... Starting a game with only one side having decided fully to engage in while making sure all the odds will be in the favor of him being a predetermined winner. It was this moment precisely that made me feel part of something immoral. The unfair rules of the game. The indifferent bull being begged to react, being pushed to the edge of fury. The bull, tired and peaceful. The bull, being teased relentlessly. The bull being pushed to a game he isn't interested in. And the matador getting credits for an unfair game he set.
As I left the arena, people looked at me with mocking eyes.
Yes, I went to watch a bull fight and yes the play of colors is marvelous. The matador’s costume is breathtaking and to be sitting in an arena fills your lungs with the sands of time. But to see the amount of claps the spill of blood is getting was beyond what I can endure. To hear the amount of claps injustice brings is astonishing. You understand a lot about human nature, about the wars taking place every day, about poverty and starvation. You understand a lot about racial discrimination and abuse (verbal and physical), sex trafficking, and everything that stirs the wounds of this world wide open. You understand a lot about humans’ thirst for injustice and violence as a way to empower hidden insecurities. Replace the bull and replace the matador. And the arena will still be there. And you'll hear the claps. You've been hearing them ever since you opened your eyes.”
― Malak El Halabi

“If you had stars inside your brain cells, you'd probably understand what I am talking about.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

“On Hemingway: Have you noticed how lonely all people in his works are - no relatives, no family?”
― Anna Akhmatova

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“But an army that is made up of good and bad elements cannot win a war. All must be brought to a certain level of political development; all must know why they are fighting, and its importance. All must believe in the fight they are to make and all must accept discipline.
- For Whom the Bell Tolls”
― Ernest Hemmingway

“But then we did not think ever of ourselves as poor. We did not accept it. We thought we were superior people and other people that we looked down on and rightly mistrusted were rich. It had never seemed strange to me to wear sweatshirts for underwear to keep warm. It only seemed odd to rich. We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“I had try to tell the difference between the night and the day and how the night was better unless the day was very clean and cold and I could not tell it; as I cannot tell it now. But if you have had it you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk... that will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
---Ernest Hemingway”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Sky aflame
With vermillion passion
Adrift

Empty streets
Silently serenade
Silken

Within my pocket
Hemingway hums
Static.”
― Phen Weston, Nothing But The Rain: A Collection of Poems

“I typed regret
into a search engine
and the familiar face
of Hemingway appeared.
Were his words
poured out for me
like wine waiting
for lost hearts?”
― Phen Weston

“There's a well kept secret to intense and heartfelt writing. Let your words bleed. (A new take on Hemingway's famous quote)”
― Sky Bardsey

“«Harry, perché gli scrittori sono persone così sole? Hemingway, Melville... Sono gli uomini più soli del mondo!»
«Non so se siano gli scrittori a essere soli, o se sia la solitudine a spingerli a scrivere...»”
― Joël Dicker, La Vérité sur l'Affaire Harry Quebert

“There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“Kad bih je barem kakvom lukavštinom mogao natjerati da se odluči, pomisli starac.
Ona je odlučila ostati u dubokoj tamnoj vodi, daleko od svih zamki, obmana i lukavština. A ja sam odlučio da je upravo ja od svih ljudi potražim. Od svih ljudi na svijetu. I sad smo ovdje skupa, još od podne. I nikog nema da pomogne ni meni ni njoj.
Možda nije trebalo da budem ribar, pomisli. Ali ja sam stvoren za to.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Strašna je ova ribetina, moram je obuzdati, pomisli. Ne smijem joj dopustiti da postane svjesna svoje snage ni onoga što bi mogla učiniti kad bi potegnula svom snagom. Da sam na njezinu mjestu, sad bih zapeo iz sve snage i povukao pa kud puklo da puklo. Ali one, hvala Bogu, nisu tako pametne ko mi koji ih ubijama, iako su plemenitije i sposobnije od nas.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Dentuso je bio okrutan, vješt, snažan i pametan. Ali ja sam bio pametniji od njega. A možda i nisam. Možda sam bio samo bolje oboružan.
- Nemoj sad razmišljati, stari - reče starac. - Plovi samo dalje i ne daj se kad opet dođu!
Ali moram razmišljati, pomisli. Ništa mi drugo ne preostaje. To, i bejzbol.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Bilo bi ludo ne nadati se, pomisli. Osim toga, mislim da bi to bio i grijeh. Nemoj sad misliti na grijeh, pomisli. Imaš dosta problema i bez grijeha. A i ne razumiješ se u te stvari.
Ne razumijem se u te stvari i nisam siguran da vjerujem u sve to. Možda je bio grijeh ubiti ribu. Mislim da je tako iako sam je ubio da prehranim sebe i mnoge druge. Ali onda je sve grijeh. Nemoj misliti na grijeh. Kasno je da misliš na grijeh, a ima i ljudi koji su za to plaćeni. Neka oni misle na te stvari. Ti si rođen da budeš ribar ko što je i riba rođena da bude riba.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“- Njega sam ubio u samoobrani - opet će starac naglas. - I pošteno sam ga ubio.
Osim toga, pomisli, svi se među sobom ubijaju, na ovaj ili onaj način. Ribarenje me ubija koliko me i održava na životu.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“No man should be asked to live with so much sadness, and with so little promise of relief.”
― Naomi Wood, Mrs. Hemingway

“Ernest chose to go, she finally thinks, watching the fire turn the papers black. He loved her but he could not live anymore.”
― Naomi Wood, Mrs. Hemingway

“No one knew much about the Twenty-Eighth Infantry. It was not a glamour outfit.
They knew about the Big Red One and the Screaming Eagles, about the Eighty-Second Airborne and Hell On Wheels, but not about Twenty-Eighth Infantry. The name was met with a certain silence, as if he was in a room full of Harvard graduates and told them his degree was by correspondence.”
― Miles Watson, A Story Never Told

“No one knew much about the Twenty-Eighth Infantry. It was not a glamour outfit. They knew about the Big Red One and the Screaming Eagles, about the Eighty-Second Airborne and Hell On Wheels, but not about Twenty-Eighth Infantry. The name was met with a certain silence, as if he was in a room full of Harvard graduates and told them his degree was by correspondence.”
― Miles Watson, A Story Never Told

“To Have and Have Not”

It was during 1937 that Ernest Hemingway wrote the novel “To Have and Have Not” about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain who ran contraband between Havana and Key West. Things didn’t go well for Morgan as he sank ever deeper into debt. Hemingway’s book continued with Harry Morgan running his boat between Cuba and the United States, carrying revolutionaries to Cuba and smuggling Chinese immigrants and rum into Florida. The depression during the early 1930’s and the hunger experienced by the “Conchs” of Key West was Morgan’s motive for ferrying his illegal cargo between the two countries.

When Ernest Hemingway moved to Cuba early in 1939, he took his boat the Pilar across the Straits of Florida to Havana, where he first checked into the Hotel Ambos Mundos. Shortly thereafter, Martha joined him in Cuba and they initially rented, and later in 1940, purchased a home for $12,500. Located 10 miles to the east of Havana, in the small town of San Francisco de Paula, they settled into what they called Finca Vigía, the Lookout Farm. After a difficult divorce from Pauline, Ernest and Martha got married on November 20, 1940. Even though Cuba had permanently become their home, they sought writing assignments overseas, including one in China that Martha got for Collier’s magazine. Returning to Cuba just prior to the outbreak of World War II, he convinced the Cuban government to outfit his boat with armaments, with which he intended to ambush German submarines. As the war progressed, Hemingway went to London as a war correspondent, where he met Mary Welsh. His infatuation prompted him to propose to her, which of course did not sit well with Martha.”
― Captain Hank Bracker

“Pe atunci, ziceam că Parisul e minunea minunilor, și așa și era. La urma urmei, noi l-am inventat. Noi l-am creat, cu dorurile noastre, cu țigările și romul St. James; l-am plăsmuit din fum și conversații deștepte, crude, și vai de cei care ar fi spus că nu e al nostru. Împreună am făcut tot, apoi l-am desfăcut iar în bucăți.”
― Paula McLain, The Paris Wife

“When he returned to Florida in the early part of 1939, Hemingway took his boat the Pilar across the Straits of Florida to Havana, where he checked into the Hotel Ambos Mundos. Shortly thereafter, Martha joined him in Cuba and they first rented, and later in 1940, purchased their home for $12,500. Located 10 miles to the east of Havana, in the small town of San Francisco de Paula, they settled into what they called Finca Vigía, the Lookout Farm. On November 20, 1940, after a difficult divorce from Pauline, Ernest and Martha got married. Even though Cuba had become their home, they still took editorial assignments overseas, including one in China that Martha had for Collier’s magazine. Returning to Cuba just prior to the outbreak of World War II, he convinced the Cuban government to outfit his boat with armaments, with which he intended to ambush German submarines. As the war progressed, Hemingway went to London as a war correspondent, where he met Mary Welsh. His infatuation prompted him to propose to her, which of course did not sit well with Martha.
Hemingway was present at the liberation of Paris and attended a party hosted by Sylvia Beach. He, incidentally, also renewed a friendship with Gertrude Stein. Becoming a famous war correspondence he covered the Battle of the Bulge, however he then spent the rest of the war on the sidelines hospitalized with pneumonia. Even so, Ernest was awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. Once again, Hemingway fell in lust, this time with a 19-year-old girl, Adriana Ivancich. This so-called platonic, wink, wink, love affair was the essence of his novel Across the River and Into the Trees, which he wrote in Cuba.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "The Exciting Story of Cuba"

“Decía Hemingway que al describir un paisaje quería que el lector se quedara con la memoria del paisaje y no con las palabras usadas para describirlo.”
― Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Viajes con un mapa en blanco

“Before he wrote about them," said Quilty, pretending to read the guidebook out loud, "Hemingway shot his characters. It was considered an unusual but not unheard-of creative method. Still, even within literary circles, it is not that widely discussed.”
― Lorrie Moore, Birds of America: Stories

“It's a good thing," Trump said, "but it's a bit of a shame because I was the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters.”
― Bob Woodward, Fear: Trump in the White House