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How Do You Tell A Valuable French Book?' 'first There Are The Pictures. Then It Is A Question Of The Quality Of The Pictures. Then It Is The Binding. If A Book Is Good, The Owner Will Have It Bound Properly. All Books In English Are Bound, But Bound Badly. There Is No Way Of Judging Them.

-Ernest Hemingway

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How Do You Tell

Ernest Hemingway

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How Do You Tell A Valuable French Book?' 'first There Are The Pictures. Then It Is A Question Of The Quality Of The Pictures. Then It Is The Binding. If A Book Is Good, The Owner Will Have It Bound Properly. All Books In English Are Bound, But Bound Badly. There Is No Way Of Judging Them.

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More From Ernest Hemingway

In Going Where You Have To Go, And Doing What You Have To Do, And Seeing What You Have To See, You'll Dull And Blunt The Instrument You Write With. But I Would Rather Have It Bent And Dull And Know I Had To Put It To The Grindstone Again And Hammer It Into Shape And Put A Whetstone To It, And Know That I Had Something To Write About, Than To Have It Bright And Shining And Nothing To Say, Or Smooth And Well-oiled In The Closet, But Unused.

It Is Appearances, Characteristics And Performance That Make A Man Love An Airplane, And They, Are What Put Emotion Into One. You Love A Lot Of Things If You Live Around Them, But There Isn't Any Woman And There Isn't Any Horse, Nor Any Before Nor Any After, That Is As Lovely As A Great Airplane, And Men Who Love Them Are Faithful To Them Even Though They Leave Them For Others. A Man Has Only One Virginity To Lose In Fighters, And If It Is A Lovely Plane He Loses It To, There His Heart Will Ever Be.

The Only Decent Bone In Her Body Was Mine.

You Can Write Any Time People Will Leave You Alone And Not Interrupt You. Or Rather You Can If You Will Be Ruthless Enough About It. But The Best Writing Is Certainly When You Are In Love.

I Know War As Few Other Men Now Living Know It, And Nothing To Me Is More Revolting. I Have Long Advocated Its Complete Abolition, As Its Very Destructiveness On Both Friend And Foe Has Rendered It Useless As A Method Of Settling International Disputes.

You Are So Brave And Quiet I Forget You Are Suffering.

You Ought To Be Ironical The Minute You Get Out Of Bed. You Ought To Wake Up With Your Mouth Full Of Pity.

His (the Writer's) Standard Of Fidelity To The Truth Should Be So High That His Invention, Out Of His Experience, Should Produce A Truer Account Than Anything Factual Can Be.

Cheer Up,' I Said. 'all Countries Look Just Like The Moving Pictures.

No One Ever Stopped When They Were Winning.

Time Is The Least Thing We Have.

Why Should Anybody Be Interested In Some Old Man Who Was A Failure?

The English Talked With Inflected Phrases. One Phrase To Mean Everything.

I Kissed Her Hard And Held Her Tight And Tried To Open Her Lips; They Were Closed Tight.

Something, Or Something Awful Or Something Wonderful Was Certain To Happen On Every Day In This Part Of Africa.

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 ... You Will Never Be Stuck. Always Stop While You Are Going Good And Don't Think About It Or Worry About It Until You Start To Write The Next Day. That Way Your Subconscious Will Work On It All The Time. But If You Think About It Consciously Or Worry About It You Will Kill It And Your Brain Will Be Tired Before You Start.

He Remembered Poor Julian [actually F. Scott Fitzgerald] And His Romantic Awe Of Them And How He Had Started A Story Once That Began, "the Very Rich Are Different From You And Me." And How Someone Had Said To Julian, "yes, They Have More Money."

Scott Fitzgerald

A Girl Came In The Cafe And Sat By Herself At A Table Near The Window. She Was Very Pretty With A Face Fresh As A Newly Minted Coin If They Minted Coins In Smooth Flesh With Rain-freshened Skin, And Her Hair Black As A Crow's Wing And Cut Sharply And Diagonally Across Her Cheek.

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.

If You Are Lucky Enough To Have Lived In Paris As A Young Man, Then Wherever You Go For The Rest Of Your Life It Stays With You, For Paris Is A Moveable Feast.

The Circus Is The Only Fun You Can Buy That Is Good For You.

For A Poet He Threw A Very Accurate Milk Bottle.

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

There Are So Many Good Ones To Paint And If You Paint As Well As You Really Can And Keep Out Of All Other Things And Do That, It Is The True Thing.

They Say The Seeds Of What We Will Do Are In All Of Us, But It Always Seemed To Me That In Those Who Make Jokes In Life The Seeds Are Covered With Better Soil And With A Higher Grade Of Manure.

My Aim Is To Put Down On Paper What I See And What I Feel In The Best And Simplest Way.

Inspirational Life

I Always Try To Write On The Principle Of The Iceberg. There Is Seven-eighths Of It Underwater For Every Part That Shows.

And You'll Always Love Me Won't You? Yes And The Rain Won't Make Any Difference? No

Farewell To Arms

There Is No Night Life In Spain. They Stay Up Late But They Get Up Late. That Is Not Night Life. That Is Delaying The Day. Night Life Is When You Get Up With A Hangover In The Morning. Night Life Is When Everybody Says What The Hell And You Do Not Remember Who Paid The Bill. Night Life Goes Round And Round And You Look At The Wall To Make It Stop. Night Life Comes Out Of A Bottle And Goes Into A Jar. If You Think How Much Are The Drinks It Is Not Night Life.

What Difference Does It Make If You Live In A Picturesque Little Outhouse Surrounded By 300 Feeble Minded Goats And Your Faithful Dog? The Question Is: Can You Write?

The Game Of Golf Would Lose A Great Deal If Croquet Mallets And Billiard Cues Were Allowed On The Putting Green.

I Was As Afraid As The Next Man In My Time And Maybe More So. But With The Years, Fear Had Come To Be Regarded As A Form Of Stupidity To Be Classed With Overdrafts, Acquiring A Venereal Disease Or Eating Candies. Fear Is A Child's Vice And While I Loved To Feel It Approach, As One Does With Any Vice, It Was Not For Grown Men And The Only Thing To Be Afraid Of Was The Presence Of True And Imminent Danger In A Form That You Should Be Aware Of And Not Be A Fool If You Were Responsible For Others.

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

No One Should Be Alone In Their Old Age, He Thought.

I'm Tired Of Everybody. Please Forgive Me.

There Is Nothing To Writing. All You Do Is Sit Down At A Typewriter And Bleed.

Find The Best Writers, Pay Them To Write, And Avoid Typos At All Costs.

The Time To Work Is Shorter All The Time And If You Waste It You ... Have Committed A Sin For Which There Is No Forgiveness.

Mice: What Is The Best Early Training For A Writer? Y.c.: An Unhappy Childhood.

Unhappy Childhood

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.

Never Fall In Love?" "always," Said The Count. "i Am Always In Love.

Falling In Love

Never Fall In Love

You Must Be Prepared To Work Always Without Applause.

I Am Drunk, Seest Thou? When I Am Not Drunk I Do Not Talk. You Have Never Heard Me Talk Much. But An Intelligent Man Is Sometimes Forced To Be Drunk To Spend His Time With Fools.

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.

All A Man Has Is Pride. Sometimes You Have It So Much It Is A Sin. We Have All Done Things For Pride That We Knew Were Impossible. We Didn't Care. But A Man Must Implement His Pride With Intelligence And Care.

He Rested Sitting On The Un-stepped Mast And Sail And Tried Not To Think But Only To Endure.

For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn.

Religion Is The Opium Of The Poor.

I Was So Sentimental About You I'd Break Any One's Heart For You. My, I Was A Damned Fool. I Broke My Own Heart, Too. It's Broken And Gone. Everything I Believe In And Everything I Cared About I Left For You Because You Were So Wonderful And You Loved Me So Much That Love Was All That Mattered. Love Was The Greatest Thing, Wasn't It?

Part Of You Died Each Year When The Leaves Fell From The Trees And Their Branches Were Bare Against The Wind And The Cold, Wintry Light.

There Are Two Kinds Of Stories, The Ones You Live And The Ones You Make Up. And Nobody Knows The Difference, And I Don't Ever Tell Which Is Which.

Oh, Darling, You Will Be Good To Me, Won’t You? Because We’re Going To Have A Strange Life.

Those Who Say They Want To Be Writers, And Aren’t Writing, Don’t.

A Big Lie Is More Plausible Than Truth.

Isn't It Pretty To Think So.

I Am Opposed To Writing About The Private Lives Of Living Authors And Psychoanalyzing Them While They Are Alive. Criticism Is Getting All Mixed Up With A Combination Of The Junior Fbi-men, Discards From Freud And Jung And A Sort Of Columnist Peep-hole And Missing Laundry List School. ... Every Young English Professor Sees Gold In Them Dirty Sheets Now. Imagine What They Can Do With The Soiled Sheets Of Four Legal Beds By The Same Writer And You Can See Why Their Tongues Are Slavering.

But Man Is Not Made For Defeat. A Man Can Be Destroyed But Not Defeated.

There Can Be No Great Literature In America Until Her Writers Have Learned To Trust Her Implicitly And Love Her Devoutly.

When You Work Hard All Day With Your Head And Know You Must Work Again The Next Day What Else Can Change Your Ideas And Make Them Run On A Different Plane Like Whisky?

The Fact That I Am Interrupting Serious Work To Answer These Questions Proves That I Am So Stupid That I Should Be Penalized Severely. I Will Be. Don't Worry.

He's A Great Writer. If I Didn't Think So I Wouldn't Have Tried To Kill Him... I Was The Champ And When I Read His Stuff I Knew He Had Something. So I Dropped A Heavy Glass Skylight On His Head At A Drinking Party. But You Can't Kill The Guy. He's Not Human.

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

The Cat Has Complete Emotional Honesty - An Attribute Not Often Found In Humans.

The First And Final Thing You Have To Do In This World Is To Last It And Not Be Smashed By It.

They Arrested Us After Breakfast.

One Cat Just Leads To Another.

You're An Expatriate. You've Lost Touch With The Soil. You Get Precious. Fake European Standards Have Ruined You. You Drink Yourself To Death. You Become Obsessed By Sex. You Spend All Your Time Talking, Not Working. You Are An Expatriate, See? You Hang Around Cafts.

If You're Looking For Messages, Try Western Union.

Where Do The Noses Go? I Always Wondered Where The Noses Would Go.

I Had Gone To No Such Place But To The Smoke Of Cafes And Nights When The Room Whirled And You Needed To Look At The Wall To Make It Stop, Nights In Bed, Drunk, When You Knew That That Was All There Was, And The Strange Excitement Of Waking And Not Knowing Who It Was With You, And The World All Unreal In The Dark And So Exciting That You Must Resume Again Unknowing And Not Caring In The Night, Sure That This Was All And All And All And Not Caring.

The Shortest Answer Is Doing The Thing.

Writing Is A Hard Business...but Nothing Makes You Feel Better.

And Who Understands? Not Me, Because If I Did I Would Forgive It All.

Just As, With The Radio, There Are Certain Things That You Become Fond Of,and You Welcome Them And Resent The New Things

Out Of All The Things You Could Not Have There Were Some Things That You Could Have And One Of Those Was To Know When You Were Happy And To Enjoy All Of It While It Was There And It Was Good.

This Beer Is Good For You. This Is Draft Beer. Stick With The Beer. Let's Go And Beat This Guy Up And Come Back And Drink Some More Beer.

I Was Young And Not Gloomy And There Were Always Strange And Comic Things That Happened In The Worst Time.

He Liked The Works Of His Friends, Which Is Beautiful As Loyalty But Can Be Disastrous As Judgement.

The Most Painful Thing Is Losing Yourself In The Process Of Loving Someone Too Much, And Forgetting That You Are Special Too.

I'm Always Reading Books-as Many As There Are. I Ration Myself On Them So That I'll Always Be In Supply.

The Brown Blotches Of The Benevolent Skin Cancer The Sun Brings From Its Reflection On The Tropic Sea Were On His Cheeks. The Blotches Ran Well Down The Sides Of His Face And His Hands Had The Deep-creased Scars From Handling Heavy Fish On The Cords. But None Of These Scars Were Fresh. They Were As Old As Erosions In A Fishless Desert.

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.

The Worst Death For Anyone Is To Lose The Center Of His Being, The Thing He Really Is. Retirement Is The Filthiest Word In The Language. Whether By Choice Or By Fate, To Retire From What You Do - And Makes You What You Are - Is To Back Up Into The Grave.

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 Like A Dog For No Good Reason.

The Writer's Job Is To Tell The Truth.

Telling The Truth

It Could Be Worse,' Passini Said Respectfully. "there Is Nothing Worse Than War." Defeat Is Worse." I Do Not Believe It," Passini Said Still Respectfully. "what Is Defeat? You Go Home.

I Wanted To Try This New Drink: That's All We Do, Isn't It - Look At Things And Try New Drinks?

When I Am Working On A Book Or A Story I Write Every Morning As Soon After First Light As Possible. There Is No One To Disturb You And It Is Cool Or Cold And You Come To Your Work And Warm As You Write. . . .when You Stop You Are As Empty, And At The Same Time Never Empty But Filling, As When You Have E Made Love To Someone You Love. Nothing Can Hurt You, Nothing Can Happen, Nothing Means Anything Until The Next Day When You Do It Again. It Is The Wait Until The Next Day That Is Hard To Get Through.

There Is A Mystery In All Great Writing And That Mystery Does Not Dissect Out. It Continues And Is Always Valid.

America Is The Land Of Wide Lawns And Narrow Minds.

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

I Drank A Bottle Of Wine For Company. It Was Chateau Margaux. It Was Pleasant To Be Drinking Slowly And To Be Tasting The Wine And To Be Drinking Alone. A Bottle Of Wine Was Good Company.

There Are Only Two Places In The World Where We Can Live Happy: At Home And In Paris.

Anyone Can Be A Fisherman In May.

It Is Impossible To Believe The Emotional And Spiritual Intensity And Pure, Classic Beauty That Can Be Produced By A Man, An Animal, And A Piece Of Scarlet Serge Draped Over A Stick.

It Seemed Out Of Place To Think Of Consequences During The Fiesta.

Some People Show Evil As A Great Racehorse Shows Breeding. They Have The Dignity Of A Hard Chancre.

Perhaps I Should Not Have Been A Fisherman, He Thought. But That Was The Thing That I Was Born For.

The Telephone And Visitors Are The Work Destroyers.

A Bottle Of Wine Was Good Company.

Now I Am Depressed Myself,' I Said. 'that's Why I Never Think About These Things. I Never Think And Yet When I Begin To Talk I Say The Things I Have Found Out In My Mind Without Thinking.

Every Day Above Earth Is A Good Day.

Now A Writer Can Make Himself A Nice Career While He Is Alive By Espousing A Political Cause, Working For It, Making A Profession Of Believing In It, And If It Wins He Will Be Very Well Placed. All Politics Is A Matter Of Working Hard Without Reward, Or With A Living Wage For A Time, In The Hope Of Booty Later. A Man Can Be A Fascist Or A Communist And If His Outfit Gets In He Can Get To Be An Ambassador Or Have A Million Copies Of His Books Printed By The Government Or Any Of The Other Rewards The Boys Dream About.

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.

Not The Why But The What.

When You Have A Child, The World Has A Hostage.

Because We Would Not Wear Any Clothes Because It Was So Hot And The Windows Open And The Swallows Flying Over The Roofs Of The Houses And When It Was Dark Afterward And You Went To The Window Very Small Bats Hunting Over The Houses And Close Down Over The Trees And We Would Drink Capri And The Door Locked And It Hot And Only A Sheet And The Whole Night And We Would Both Love Each Other All Night In The Hot Night In Milan. That Was How It Ought To Be.

It Wasn't By Accident That The Gettysburg Address Was So Short. The Laws Of Prose Writing Are As Immutable As Those Of Flight, Of Mathematics, Of Physics.

I Did Not Understand Them But They Did Not Have Any Mystery, And When I Understood Them They Meant Nothing To Me. I Was Sorry About This But There Was Nothing I Could Do About It.

It Is By Riding A Bicycle That You Learn The Contours Of A Country Best, Since You Have To Sweat Up The Hills And Coast Down Them.

Riding Your Bike

She Is Kind And Very Beautiful. But She Can Be So Cruel And It Comes So Suddenly And Such Birds That Fly, Dipping And Hunting, With Their Small Sad Voices Are Made Too Delicately For The Sea.

The Questioners Had That Beautiful Detachment And Devotion To Stern Justice Of Men Dealing In Death Without Being In Any Danger Of It.

I Am An Old Man Who Will Live Until I Die," Anselmo Said.

There Is Nothing Noble In Being Superior To Your Fellow Men. True Nobility Lies In Being Superior To Your Former Self.

Yes, They Have More Money.

You're Not A Moron. You're Only A Case Of Arrested Development.

I Am So In Love With You That There Isn’t Anything Else.

There's No One Thing That's True. It's All True.

I Was A Little Drunk. Not Drunk In Any Positive Sense But Just Enough To Be Careless.

I Can't Stand It To Think My Life Is Going So Fast And I'm Not Really Living It.

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

Writing And Travel Broaden Your Ass If Not Your Mind And I Like To Write Standing Up.

The Writer's Job Is Not To Judge, But To Seek To Understand.

Worry Destroys The Ability To Write.

Enjoying Living Was Learning To Get Your Money's Worth And Knowing When You Had It.

Everybody Has Something Wrong With Them.

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.

At Night, Never Go To Bed Without Knowing What You'll Write Tomorrow.

We're Stronger In The Places That We've Been Broken.

The Hard Part About Writing A Novel Is Finishing It.

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.

Never Confuse Motions With Action.

I Have Watched Them All Day And They Are The Same Men That We Are. I Believe That I Could Walk Up To The Mill And Knock On The Door And I Would Be Welcome Except That They Have Orders To Challenge All Travelers And Ask To See Their Papers. It Is Only Orders That Come Between Us. Those Men Are Not Fascists. I Call Them So, But They Are Not. They Are Poor Men As We Are. They Should Never Be Fighting Against Us And I Do Not Like To Think Of The Killing.

Before We Take To The Sea, We Walk On Land. . . Before We Create, We Must Understand. . .

The Best Writing Is Certainly When You Are In Love

As I Ate The Oysters With Their Strong Taste Of The Sea And Their Faint Metallic Taste That The Cold White Wine Washed Away, Leaving Only The Sea Taste And The Succulent Texture, And As I Drank Their Cold Liquid From Each Shell And Washed It Down With The Crisp Taste Of The Wine, I Lost The Empty Feeling And Began To Be Happy And To Make Plans.

I Used To Play Cello. My Mother Kept Me Out Of School A Whole Year To Study Music And Counterpoint. She Thought I Had Ability, But I Was Absolutely Without Talent.

Modern Life ... Is Often A Mechanical Oppression And Liquor Is The Only Mechanical Relief.

In Company With People Of Your Own Trade You Ordinarily Speak Of Other Writers' Books. The Better The Writers The Less They Will Speak About What They Have Written Themselves. Joyce Was A Very Great Writer And He Would Only Explain What He Was Doing To Jerks. Other Writers That He Respected Were Supposed To Be Able To Know What He Was Doing By Reading It.

I Do Not Know What I Thought Paris Would Be Like, But It Was Not That Way. It Rained Nearly Every Day.

You Belong To Me And All Paris Belongs To Me And I Belong To This Notebook And This Pencil.

When We Came Back To Paris It Was Clear And Cold And Lovely.

Everyone Has His Own Conscience, And There Should Be No Rules About How A Conscience Should Function.

Courage Is Grace Under Pressure.

All The Critics Who Could Not Make Their Reputations By Discovering You Are Hoping To Make Them By Predicting Hopefully Your Approaching Impotence, Failure And General Drying Up Of Natural Juices. Not A One Will Wish You Luck Or Hope That You Will Keep On Writing Unless You Have Political Affiliations In Which Case These Will Rally Around And Speak Of You And Homer, Balzac, Zola And Link Steffens.

I Love You For All That You Are, All That You Have Been, All That You're Yet To Be.

So This Was How You Died, In Whispers That You Did Not Hear.

I Would Not Have Thought Of Eating A Meal Without Drinking A Beer.

There Is No Left And Right In Writing. There Is Only Good And Bad Writing.

I May Not Be As Stong As I Think, But I Know Many Tricks And I Have Resolution.

If Every One Said Orders Were Impossible To Carry Out When They Were Received Where Would You Be? Where Would We All Be If You Just Said, "impossible," When Orders Came?

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?

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

Experiencing Differences Is Crucial To The Human Condition. Especially When That Difference Is Over The Head, Blower Powder.

Human Condition

Scott Fitzgerald Was Mortally Afraid Of Lightning.

Scott Fitzgerald

And If There Is Not Any Such Thing As A Long Time, Nor The Rest Of Your Lives, Nor From Now On, But There Is Only Now, Why Then Now Is The Thing To Praise And I Am Very Happy With It.

Rest Of Your Life

The Best Way To Become A Writer Is To Go Off And Write.

All Stories, If Continued Far Enough, End In Death, And He Is No True-story Teller Who Would Keep That From You. Especially Do All Stories Of Monogamy End In Death, And Your Man Who Is Monogamous While He Often Lives Most Happily, Dies In The Most Lonely Fashion.

Most People Are Heartless About Turtles Because A Turtle's Heart Will Beat For Hours After He Has Been Cut Up And Butchered. But The Old Man Thought, I Have Such A Heart Too And My Feet And Hands Are Like Theirs.

You Love A Lot Of Things If You Live Around Them, But There Isn't Any Woman And There Isn't Any Horse, Nor Any Before Nor Any After, That Is As Lovely As A Great Airplane.

Each Day Of Not Writing, Of Comfort, Of Being That Which He Despised, Dulled His Ability And Softened His Will To Work So That, Finally, He Did No Work At All.

You Are All A Lost Generation. [with Credit To Gertrude Stein]

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

Nobody Ever Lives Their Life All The Way Up Except Bullfighters.

Don't Get Discouraged Because There's A Lot Of Mechanical Work To Writing. I Rewrote The First Part Of Farewell To Arms At Least Fifty Times.

As A Nobel Prize Winner I Cannot But Regret That The Award Was Never Given To Mark Twain, Nor To Henry James, Speaking Only Of My Own Countrymen. Greater Writers Than These Also Did Not Receive The Prize. I Would Have Been Happy - Happier - Today If The Prize Had Been Given To That Beautiful Writer Isak Dinesen.

As In No Other Form Of Lute Or Combat, The Conditions Are Such; The Winner Takes Nothing, Neither His Ease, Nor His Pleasure, Nor Any Notion Of Glory, Nor If He Wins Far Enough, Will He Find Anything Within Himself.

It Is Good That We Do Not Have To Try To Kill The Sun Or The Moon Or The Stars. It Is Enough To Live On The Sea And Kill Our True Brothers.

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.

Let Those Who Want To Save The World If You Can Get To See It Clear And As A Whole. Then Any Part You Make Will Represent The Whole If It's Made Truly. The Thing To Do Is Work And Learn To Make It.

I Would Take Anything I Love And Throw It Off The Highest Cliff You Ever Saw And Not Wait To Hear It Bounce.

As A Writer, You Should Not Judge, You Should Understand.

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.

I’m Not Brave Any More Darling. I’m All Broken. They’ve Broken Me.

Farewell To Arms

I've Tried To Reduce Profanity But I Reduced So Much Profanity When Writing The Book That I'm Afraid Not Much Could Come Out. Perhaps We Will Have To Consider It Simply As A Profane Book And Hope That The Next Book Will Be Less Profane Or Perhaps More Sacred.

Once Writing Has Become Your Major Vice And Greatest Pleasure Only Death Can Stop It. Financial Security Then Is A Great Help As It Keeps You From Worrying.

Hunger Is Good Discipline.

Good Discipline

I Thought That All Generations Were Lost By Something And Always Had Been And Always Would Be

In The Fall The War Was Always There But We Did Not Go To It Any More.

And You Treat Me Wonderfully And Keep All Your Promises.

Before You Quit, You Have To Try

The House Was Built On The Highest Part Of The Narrow Tongue Of Land Between The Harbor And The Open Sea. It Had Lasted Through Three Hurricanes And It Was Built Solid As A Ship.

In The Spring Mornings I Would Work Early While My Wife Still Slept. The Windows Were Open Wide And The Cobbles Of The Street Were Drying After The Rain.

That Seemed To Handle It. That Was It. Send A Girl Off With One Man. Introduce Her To Another To Go Off With Him. Now Go And Bring Her Back. And Sign The Wire With Love. That Was It All Right. I Went In To Lunch.

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.

I Always Worked Until I Had Something Done And I Always Stopped When I Knew What Was Going To Happen Next. That Way I Could Be Sure Of Going On The Next Day.

Never Mistake Motive For Action.

However You Make Your Living Is Where Your Talent Lies.

I'm Not Advocating The Strenuous Life For Everyone Or Trying To Say It's The Choice Form Of Life. Anyone Who's Had The Luck Or Misfortune To Be An Athlete Has To Keep His Body In Shape. The Body And Mind Are Closely Coordinated. Fattening Of The Body Can Lead To Fattening Of The Mind. I Would Be Tempted To Say That It Can Lead To Fattening Of The Soul, But I Don't Know Anything About The Soul.

Il Faut D'abord Durer (first One Must Endure).

The Only Thing That Can Spoil A Day Is People And If You Can Keep From Making Engagements, Every Day Has No Limits.

But Don't Try To Find An Untroublesome Woman. She Will Dull Out On You. What Makes A Woman Good In Bed Makes It Impossible For Her To Live Alone.

I Had An Inheritance From My Father, It Was The Moon And The Sun. And Though I Roam All Over The World, The Spending Of It’s Never Done.

I Have A Rotten Habit Of Picturing The Bedroom Scenes Of My Friends.

If The Wind Rises It Can Push Us Against The Flood When It Comes.

I Drink To Make Other People More Interesting.

Everything That A Painter Did Or That A Writer Wrote Was A Part Of His Training And Preparation For What He Was To Do.

My Father Was A Deeply Sentimental Man. And Like All Sentimental Men, He Was Also Very Cruel.

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

Oh, Now, Now, Now, The Only Now, And Above All Now, And There Is No Other Now But Thou Now And Now Is Thy Prophet.

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