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Everything Is On Such A Clear Financial Basis In France. It Is The Simplest Country To Live In. No One Makes Things Complicated By Becoming Your Friend For Any Obscure Reason. If You Want People To Like You You Have Only To Spend A Little Money. I Spent A Little Money And The Waiter Liked Me. He Appreciated My Valuable Qualities. He Would Be Glad To See Me, And Would Want Me At His Table. It Would Be A Sincere Liking Because It Would Have A Sound Basis. I Was Back In France.

-Ernest Hemingway

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Everything Is On Such

Ernest Hemingway

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Everything Is On Such A Clear Financial Basis In France. It Is The Simplest Country To Live In. No One Makes Things Complicated By Becoming Your Friend For Any Obscure Reason. If You Want People To Like You You Have Only To Spend A Little Money. I Spent A Little Money And The Waiter Liked Me. He Appreciated My Valuable Qualities. He Would Be Glad To See Me, And Would Want Me At His Table. It Would Be A Sincere Liking Because It Would Have A Sound Basis. I Was Back In France.

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I Say That Is Wine," Brett Held Up Her Glass. "we Ought To Toast Something. 'here's To Royalty.'" "this Wine Is Too Good For Toast-drinking, My Dear. You Don't Want To Mix Emotions Up With A Wine Like That. You Lose The Taste." Brett's Glass Was Empty.

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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.

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But Sometimes When I Was Starting A New Story And I Could Not Get It Going, I Would Sit In Front Of The Fire And Squeeze The Peel Of The Little Oranges Into The Edge Of The Flame And Watch The Sputter Of Blue That They Made. I Would Stand And Look Out Over The Roofs Of Paris And Think, 'do Not Worry. You Have Always Written Before And You Will Write Now. All You Have To Do Is Write One True Sentence. Write The Truest Sentence That You Know.' So Finally I Would Write One True Sentence, And Then Go On From There.

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Now Is No Time To Think Of What You Do Not Have. Think Of What You Can Do With That There Is

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For What Are We Born If Not To Aid One Another?

Writing, At Its Best, Is A Lonely Life.

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How Did You Go Bankrupt?" Two Ways. Gradually, Then Suddenly.

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Never Write About A Place Until You're Away From It, Because It Gives You Perspective. Immediately After You've Seen Something You Can Give A Photographic Description Of It And Make It Accurate. That's Good Practice, But It Isn't Creative Writing.

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Write The Story, Take Out All The Good Lines, And See If It Still Works.

I Might Say That What Amateurs Call A Style Is Usually Only The Unavoidable Awkwardnesses In First Trying To Make Something That Has Not Heretofore Been Made.

The Story Was Writing Itself And I Was Having A Hard Time Keeping Up With It.

Life Is Pain, So Live It Up While You Can.

It Was Like Certain Dinners I Remember From The War. There Was Much Wine, An Ignored Tension, And A Feeling Of Things Coming That You Could Not Prevent Happening. Under The Wine I Lost The Disgusted Feeling And Was Happy. It Seemed They Were All Such Nice People.

I Am Always In Love.

And This Was The Price You Paid For Sleeping Together.

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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.

You Write A Book Like That You're Fond Of Over The Years, Then You See That Happen To It, It's Like Pissing In Your Father's Beer.

Critics Are Men Who Watch A Battle From A High Place Then Come Down And Shoot The Survivors.

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When Spring Came, Even The False Spring, There Were No Problems Except Where To Be Happiest.

Having Books Published Is Very Destructive To Writing.

You Expected To Be Sad In The Fall. Part Of You Died Each Year When The Leaves Fell From The Trees And Their Branches Were Bare Against The Wind And The Cold, Wintery Light. But You Knew There Would Always Be The Spring, As You Knew The River Would Flow Again After It Was Frozen. When The Cold Rains Kept On And Killed The Spring, It Was As Though A Young Person Died For No Reason.

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The Only Decent Bone In Her Body Was Mine.

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Inspirational Life

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Why, Darling, I Don't Live At All When I'm Not With You.

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Times Of Crisis

The Old Man Looked At Him With His Sun-burned, Confident Loving Eyes.

I Was Blown Up While We Were Eating Cheese.

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If The Others Heard Me Talking Out Loud They Would Think That I Am Crazy. But Since I Am Not, I Do Not Care.

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I'm Not Going To Get Into The Ring With Tolstoy.

Now He Was Proving It Again. Each Time Was A New Time And He Never Thought About The Past When He Was Doing It.

Man Is Not Made For Defeat.

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Dying Was Nothing And He Had No Picture Of It Nor Fear Of It In His Mind. But Living Was A Field Of Grain Blowing In The Wind On The Side Of A Hill. Living Was A Hawk In The Sky. Living Was An Earthen Jar Of Water In The Dust Of The Threshing With The Grain Flailed Out And The Chaff Blowing. Living Was A Horse Between Your Legs And A Carbine Under One Leg And A Hill And A Valley And A Stream With Trees Along It And The Far Side Of The Valley And The Hills Beyond.

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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.

Shooting Gives Me A Good Feeling. It Is Faster Than Baseball And You Are Out On One Strike.

If A Writer Knows Enough About What He Is Writing About, He May Omit Things That He Knows. The Dignity Of Movement Of An Iceberg Is Due To Only One Ninth Of It Being Above Water.

Happiness Is Often Presented As Being Very Dull But, He Thought, Lying Awake, That Is Because Dull People Are Sometimes Very Happy And Intelligent People Can And Do Go Around Making Themselves And Everyone Else Miserable. He Had Never Found Happiness Dull. It Always Seemed More Exciting Than Any Other Thing And Capable Of As Great Intensity As Sorrow To Those People Who Were Capable Of Having It.

Found Happiness

But Life Isn't Hard To Manage When You've Nothing To Lose.

Nothing To Lose

This Is A Good Place," He Said. "there's A Lot Of Liquor," I Agreed.

I Like To Listen. I Have Learned A Great Deal From Listening Carefully. Most People Never Listen.

Love Is Something That Hangs Up Behind The Bathroom Door And Smells Of Lysol.

[robert] Capa: He Was A Good Friend And A Great And Very Brave Photographer. It Is Bad Luck For Everybody That The Percentages Caught Up With Him. It Is Especially Bad For Capa. (on Capa's Death In Vietnam, May, 27, 1954)

I Rewrote The Ending Of 'farewell To Arms' 39 Times Before I Was Satisfied.

You Don't Have To Destroy Me. Do You? I'm Only A Woman Who Loves You And Wants To Do What You Want To Do. I've Been Destroyed Two Or Three Times Already. You Wouldn't Want To Destroy Me Again, Would You?

Luck Is A Thing That Comes In Many Forms And Who Can Recognize Her?

The Only Way To Combat The Murder That Is War Is To Show The Dirty Combinations That Make It And The Criminals And Swine That Hope For It And The Idiotic Way They Run It When They Get It So That An Honest Man Will Distrust It As He Would Distrust A Racket And Refuse To Be Enslaved Into It.

There Are Worse Places To Be Than On Your Own.

One Cat Just Leads To Another." [letter From Finca Vigia, Cuba, To His First Wife, Elizabeth Hadley Richardson (1943).]

If He Wrote It, He Could Get Rid Of It. He Had Gotten Rid Of Many Things By Writing Them.

You Never Understand Anybody That Loves You.

A Person With Increasing Knowledge And Sensory Education May Derive Infinite Enjoyment From Wine.

But Did Thee Feel The Earth Move?

His Talent Was As Natural As The Pattern That Was Made By The Dust On A Butterfly's Wings. At One Time He Understood It No More Than The Butterfly Did And He Did Not Know When It Was Brushed Or Marred.

You Should Only Read What Is Truly Good Or What Is Frankly Bad.

It Is All Very Well For You To Write Simply And The Simpler The Better. But Do Not Start To Think So Damned Simply. Know How Complicated It Is And Then State It Simply.

For A Long Time Now I Have Tried Simply To Write The Best I Can. Sometimes I Have Good Luck And Write Better Than I Can.

We're Always Lucky,' I Said And Like A Fool I Did Not Knock On Wood.

Eschew The Monumental. Shun The Epic. All The Guys Who Can Paint Great Big Pictures Can Paint Great Small Ones.

It's All Nonsense. It's Only Nonsense. I'm Not Afraid Of The Rain. I Am Not Afraid Of The Rain. Oh, Oh, God, I Wish I Wasn't.

You Never Kill Any One That You Want To Kill In A War, He Said To Himself.

You’re My Religion. You’re All I’ve Got.

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You Can't Get Away From Yourself By Moving From One Place To Another.

Lost Generation

In A Power Hungry, Power Worshipping Society, Men Label Themselves Atheist.

The Real Reason For Not Committing Suicide Is Because You Always Know How Swell Life Gets Again After The Hell Is Over.

Most People Never Listen.

I Try Not To Borrow, First You Borrow Then You Beg.

Use Short Sentences. Use Short First Paragraphs. Use Vigorous English. Be Positive, Not Negative.

The First Panacea For A Mismanaged Nation Is Inflation Of The Currency; The Second Is War. Both Bring A Temporary Prosperity; Both Bring A Permanent Ruin. But Both Are The Refuge Of Political And Economic Opportunists.

A Beautiful Vacuum Filled With Wealthy Monogamists, All Powerful And Members Of The Best Families All Drinking Themselves To Death.

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I Loved You When I Saw You Today And I Loved You Always But I Never Saw You Before.

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