Ernest Hemingway
Master of understated prose, Nobel laureate
Most quoted
"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."
— from A Farewell to Arms, 1929
"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you have finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer."
— from Death in the Afternoon, 1964
"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer."
— from Death in the Afternoon (posthumously published preface), 1964
All quotes by Ernest Hemingway (235)
The great thing is to last and get your work done and see it published and then die.
The more I write, the more I know I don't know.
I have to write to be happy.
The only way to write is to be honest.
I love you very much and I hope we will always be together.
Don't worry about a thing. Everything will be all right.
I am working very hard and I am very happy.
The best way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
I am trying to write a true book.
It is better to be lucky than good.
I am not a genius. I am just a hard worker.
The only thing that matters is the work.
I have never written a book that I did not believe in.
The most important thing is to finish what you start.
I am a simple man who loves to write.
The only true thing is what you feel.
I am trying to write the truth.
All good books are alike in that if you have read one of them you will want to read another and another and a third and a fourth until your heart is full.
I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night.
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.
Contemporaries of Ernest Hemingway
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961).