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Madame, It Is An Old Word And Each One Takes It New And Wears It Out Himself. It Is A Word That Fills With Meaning As A Bladder With Air And The Meaning Goes Out Of It As Quickly. It May Be Punctured As A Bladder Is Punctured And Patched And Blown Up Again And If You Have Not Had It Does Not Exist For You. All People Talk Of It, But Those Who Have Had It Are Marked By It, And I Would Not Wish To Speak Of It Further Since Of All Things It Is The Most Ridiculous To Talk Of And Only Fools Go Through It Many Times.

-Ernest Hemingway

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Madame, It Is An

Ernest Hemingway

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Madame, It Is An Old Word And Each One Takes It New And Wears It Out Himself. It Is A Word That Fills With Meaning As A Bladder With Air And The Meaning Goes Out Of It As Quickly. It May Be Punctured As A Bladder Is Punctured And Patched And Blown Up Again And If You Have Not Had It Does Not Exist For You. All People Talk Of It, But Those Who Have Had It Are Marked By It, And I Would Not Wish To Speak Of It Further Since Of All Things It Is The Most Ridiculous To Talk Of And Only Fools Go Through It Many Times.

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Your Blood Coagulates Beautifully.

Maybe...you'll Fall In Love With Me All Over Again." "hell," I Said, "i Love You Enough Now. What Do You Want To Do? Ruin Me?" "yes. I Want To Ruin You." "good," I Said. "that's What I Want Too.

We Need More True Mystery In Our Lives Hem- He Said. The Completely Unambitious Writer And The Really Good Unpublished Poem Are The Things We Lack Most. There Is Of Course The Problem Of Sustenance

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

Bullfighting Is The Only Art In Which The Artist Is In Danger Of Death And In Which The Degree Of Brilliance In The Performance Is Left To The Fighter's Honor.

Wine Is One Of The Most Civilized Things In The World And One Of The Most Natural Things Of The World That Has Been Brought To The Greatest Perfection, And It Offers A Greater Range For Enjoyment And Appreciation Than, Possibly, Any Other Purely Sensory Thing.

You Won't Do Our Things With Another Girl, Or Say The Same Things, Will You?

Farewell To Arms

I Felt The Death Loneliness That Comes At The End Of Every Day That Is Wasted In Your Life.

Everything That's Innocent To Us Is Crazy To Them.

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

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

You Did Not Kill The Fish Only To Keep Alive And To Sell For Food, He Thought. You Killed Him For Pride And Because You Are A Fisherman. You Loved Him When He Was Alive And You Loved Him After. If You Love Him, It Is Not A Sin To Kill Him. Or Is It More?

We Thought Of Wine As Something As Healthy And Normal As Food And Also As A Great Giver Of Happiness And Well Being And Delight.

Having Books Published Is Very Destructive To Writing. It Is Even Worse Than Making Love Too Much. Because When You Make Love Too Much At Least You Get A Damned Clarte That Is Like No Other Light. A Very Clear And Hollow Light.

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.

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

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

Wonder What Day God Created The Egg' 'how Should We Know? We Should Not Question. Our Stay On Earth Is Not For Long. Let Us Rejoice And Believe And Give Thanks'. 'eat A Egg

I Know The Night Is Not The Same As The Day: That All Things Are Different, That The Things Of The Night Cannot Be Explained In The Day, Because They Do Not Then Exist, And The Night Can Be A Dreadful Time For Lonely People Once Their Loneliness Has Started.

French Is The Language Of Diplomacy. Spanish Is The Language Of Bureaucracy.

Be Fully In The Moment,open Yourself To The Powerful Energies Dancing Around You.

To Have Come On All This New World Of Writing, With Time To Read In A City Like Paris Where There Was A Way Of Living Well And Working, No Matter How Poor You Were, Was Like Having A Great Treasure Given To You.

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 From The Springs That Fed It.

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.

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

The Bulls Are My Best Friends." I Translated To Brett. "you Kill Your Friends?" She Asked. "always," He Said In English, And Laughed. "so They Don't Kill Me.

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

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.

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.

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.

Madame, All Stories, If Continued Far Enough, End In Death, And He Is No True-story Teller Who Would Keep That From You.

I Read My Own Books Sometimes To Cheer Me When It Is Hard To Write, And Then I Remember That It Was Always Difficult, And How Nearly Impossible It Was Sometimes.

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.

Never Write About A Place Until You're Away From It, Because That Gives You Perspective

For A War To Be Just Three Conditions Are Necessary - Public Authority, Just Cause, Right Motive.

Never Mistake Motive For Action.

Bigotry Is An Odd Thing. To Be Bigoted You Have To Be Absolutely Sure You Are Right And Nothing Makes That Surety And Righteousness Like Continence. Continence Is The Foe Of Heresy.

But Paris Was A Very Old City And We Were Young And Nothing Was Simple There, Not Even Poverty, Nor Sudden Money, Nor The Moonlight, Nor Right And Wrong Nor The Breathing Of Someone Who Lay Beside You In The Moonlight.

This Was A Big Storm And He Might As Well Enjoy It. It Was Ruining Everything, But You Might As Well Enjoy It

If You Have A Success, You Have It For The Wrong Reasons. If You Become Popular It Is Always Because Of The Worst Aspects Of Your Work.

I Was Blown Up While We Were Eating Cheese.

Farewell To Arms

The Whiskey Warmed His Tongue And The Back Of His Throat, But It Did Not Change His Ideas Any, And Suddenly, Looking At Himself In The Mirror Behind The Bar, He Knew That Drinking Was Never Going To Do Any Good To Him Now. Whatever He Had Now He Had, And It Was From Now On, And If He Drank Himself Unconscious When He Woke Up It Would Be There.

The Better The Writers The Less They Will Speak About What They Have Written Themselves.

Being Against Evil Doesn't Make You Good.

Good Against Evil

You Can Write Anytime People Will Leave You Alone And Not Interrupt You.

There Is Never Any Ending To Paris And The Memory Of Each Person Who Has Lived In It Differs From That Of Any Other. We Always Returned To It No Matter Who We Were Or How It Was Changed Or With What Difficulties, Or Ease, It Could Be Reached. Paris Was Always Worth It And You Received Return For Whatever You Brought To It. But This Is How Paris Was In The Early Days When We Were Very Poor And Very Happy.

Of All Men The Drunkard Is The Foulest. The Thief When He Is Not Stealing Is Like Another. The Extortioner Does Not Practice In The Home. The Murderer When He Is At Home Can Wash His Hands. But The Drunkard Stinks And Vomits In This Own Bed And Dissolves His Organs In Alcohol.

This Looking And Not Seeing Things Was A Great Sin, I Thought, And One That Was Easy To Fall Into. It Was Always The Beginning Of Something Bad And I Thought That We Did Not Deserve To Live In The World If We Did Not See It.

Retirement Is The Ugliest Word In The Language.

And This Was The Price You Paid For Sleeping Together.

Sleeping Together

Tell Me Some True Things About Fighting.''tell Me You Love Me.''i Love You,' The Girl Said. 'you Can Publish It In The Gazzettino If You Like. I Love Your Hard, Flat Body And Your Strange Eyes That Frighten Me When They Become Wicked. I Love Your Hand And All Your Other Wounded Places.

Worry Destroys The Ability To Write. Ill Health Is Bad In The Ratio That It Produces Worry Which Attacks Your Subconscious And Destroys Your Nerves.

By Then I Knew That Everything Good And Bad Left An Emptiness When It Stopped. But If It Was Bad, The Emptiness Filled Up By Itself. If It Was Good You Could Only Fill It By Finding Something Better.

Our Nada Who Art In Nada, Nada Be Thy Name Thy Kingdom Nada Thy Will Be Nada In Nada As It Is In Nada. Give Us This Nada Our Daily Nada And Nada Us Our Nada As We Nada Our Nadas And Nada Us Not Into Nada But Deliver Us From Nada; Pues Nada. Hail Nothing Full Of Nothing, Nothing Is With Thee.

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.

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.

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 Don't Like To Write Like God. It Is Only Because You Never Do It, Though, That The Critics Think You Can't Do It.

That Is What We Are Supposed To Do When We Are At Our Best - Make It All Up - But Make It Up So Truly That Later It Will Happen That Way.

Never Think That War, No Matter How Necessary, Nor How Justified, Is Not A Crime.

Time Is The Least Thing We Have.

And You Treat Me Wonderfully And Keep All Your Promises.

No Subject Is Terrible If The Story Is True, If The Prose Is Clean And Honest, And If It Affirms Courage And Grace Under Pressure.

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.

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

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 Never Liked To Hunt, You Know. There Was Always The Danger Of Having A Horse Fall On You.

We Would Be Together And Have Our Books And At Night Be Warm In Bed Together With The Windows Open And The Stars Bright.

Yes, They Have More Money.

When You Love You Wish To Do Things For. You Wish To Sacrifice For. You Wish To Serve.

One Cat Just Leads To Another. The Place Is So Damned Big It Doesn't Really Seem As Though There Were Many Cats Until You See Them All Moving Like A Mass Migration At Feeding Time.

Everybody Is Friends When Things Are Bad Enough.

I Had Seen Nothing Sacred, And The Things That Were Glorious Had No Glory And The Sacrifices Were Like The Stockyards At Chicago If Nothing Was Done With The Meat Except To Bury It.

Write As Well As You Can And Finish What You Start.

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

For We Have Thought The Longer Thoughts And Gone The Shorter Way. And We Have Danced To Devils' Tunes, Shivering Home To Pray; To Serve One Master In The Night, Another In The Day.

Hail Nothing Full Of Nothing, Nothing Is With Thee.

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.

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

As Long As You Can Start, You Are All Right. The Juice Will Come.

Before You React, Think. Before You Spend, Earn. Before You Criticize, Wait. Before You Quit, Try.

The Coward Dies A Thousand Deaths, The Brave But One'.... (the Man Who First Said That) Was Probably A Coward.... He Knew A Great Deal About Cowards But Nothing About The Brave. The Brave Dies Perhaps Two Thousand Deaths If He's Intelligent. He Simply Doesn't Mention Them.

You Could Omit Anything If You Knew That The Omitted Part Would Strengthen The Short Story And Make People Feel Something More Than They Understood

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?

As To Hemingway, I Read Him For The First Time In The Early 'forties, Something About Bells, Balls And Bulls, And Loathed It.

Today Is Only One Day In All The Days That Will Ever Be.

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

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.

He Could Beat Anything, He Thought, Because No Thing Could Hurt Him If He Did Not Care.

She Was Looking Into My Eyes With That Way She Had Of Looking That Made You Wonder Whether She Really Saw Out Of Her Own Eyes. They Would Look On And On After Every One Else's Eyes In The World Would Have Stopped Looking. She Looked As Though There Were Nothing On Earth She Would Not Look At Like That, And Really She Was Afraid Of So Many Things.

I Never Knew Of A Morning In Africa When I Woke That I Was Not Happy.

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.

The World Is A Fine Place And Worth The Fighting For And I Hate Very Much To Leave It.

The Echoes Of Beauty You've Seen Transpire, Resound Through Dying Coals Of A Campfire.

Every Day Is A New Day. It Is Better To Be Lucky. But I Would Rather Be Exact. Then When Luck Comes You Are Ready.

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

Nothing To Lose

The World Breaks Everyone Or Nearly Everyone, Of Their Childish Illusions, Assumptions And Wishes, Often Painfully And Afterwards Due To The Personal Growth In Practical Experience, Insight And The Resulting Wisdom Many Are Strong At The Broken Places Just Like Mended Broken Bones Often Are, And Some People Even Have The Great Insight To Be Grateful For The Purifying Fire.

I Have Noticed That Doctors Who Fail In The Practice Of Medicine Have A Tendency To Seek One Another's Company And Aid In Consultation.

Practice Of Medicine

Farewell To Arms

He Had Always Known What I Did Not Know And What, When I Learned It, I Was Always Able To Forget. But I Did Not Know That Then, Although I Learned It Later.

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.

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.

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

Once Writing Has Become Your Major Vice And Greatest Pleasure Only Death Can Stop It.

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.

When I Have An Idea, I Turn Down The Flame, As If It Were A Little Alcohol Stove, As Low As It Will Go. Then It Explodes And That Is My Idea.

Funny Sarcastic

Never Confuse Motions With Action.

Good Writing Is Good Conversation, Only More So.

Good Conversation

But In The Night He Woke And Held Her Tight As Though She Were All Of Life And It Was Being Taken From Him. He Held Her Feeling She Was All Of Life There Was And It Was True.

God Knows, People Who Are Paid To Have Attitudes Toward Things, Professional Critics, Make Me Sick; Camp-following Eunuchs Of Literature.

Decadence Is A Difficult Word To Use Since It Has Become Little More Than A Term Of Abuse Applied By Critics To Anything They Do Not Yet Understand Or Which Seems To Differ From Their Moral Concepts.

Religion Is Like An Ice Cold Whiskey On A Hot Day.

Practice Any Faith You Wish. Got A Ball Field Up The Island Where You Can Practice. I'll Give The Deity A Fast One High And Inside If He Crowds The Plate.

Go All The Way With It. Do Not Back Off. For Once, Go All The Goddamn Way With What Matters.

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.

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

No Weapon Has Ever Settled A Moral Problem. It Can Impose A Solution But It Cannot Guarantee It To Be A Just One. You Can Wipe Out Your Opponents. But If You Do It Unjustly You Become Eligible For Being Wiped Out Yourself.

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

If My Valentine You Won't Be, I'll Hang Myself On Your Christmas Tree.

Happy Valentines Day

An Intelligent Man Is Sometimes Forced To Be Drunk To Spend Time With His Fools.

The Way To Learn Whether A Person Is Trustworthy Is To Trust Him.

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

The Fun Of Talk Is To Explore, But Much Of It And All That Is Irresponsible Should Not Be Written. Once Written You Have To Stand By It. You May Have Said It To See Whether You Believed It Or Not.

A Big Lie Is More Plausible Than Truth.

How Would That Premise Stand Up If He Examined It? That Was Probably Why The Communists Were Always Cracking Down On Bohemiansism. When You Were Drunk Or When You Committed Adultery You Recognised Your Own Personal Fallability Of That So Mutable Substitute For The Apostles' Creed, The Party Line. Down With Bohemianism, The Sin Of Majakowski.

I Am Glad We Do Not Have To Try To Kill The Stars.

No Weapon Has Ever Settled A Moral Problem. It Can Impose A Solution But It Cannot Guarantee It To Be A Just One.

When People Talk, Listen Completely. Most People Never Listen.

Work Every Day. No Matter What Has Happened The Day Or Night Before, Get Up And Bite On The Nail.

All The Contact I Have Had With Politics Has Left Me Feeling As Though I Had Been Drinking Out Of Spitoons.

The Rain Will Stop, The Night Will End, The Hurt Will Fade. Hope Is Never So Lost That It Can't Be Found.

Hombre, There Are Bodegas Open All Night Long.

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

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.

If The Reader Prefers, This Book May Be Regarded As Fiction. But There Is Always The Chance That Such A Book Of Fiction May Throw Some Light On What Has Been Written As Fact.

You Don't Have To Destroy Me. Do You?

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.

I Wonder What Your Idea Of Heaven Would Be — A Beautiful Vacuum Filled With Wealthy Monogamists. All Powerful And Members Of The Best Families All Drinking Themselves To Death. And Hell Would Probably An Ugly Vacuum Full Of Poor Polygamists Unable To Obtain Booze Or With Chronic Stomach Disorders That They Called Secret Sorrows.

As You Get Older It Is Harder To Have Heroes, But It Is Sort Of Necessary.

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

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

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

You’ll Ache. And You’re Going To Love It. It Will Crush You. And You’re Still Going To Love All Of It.

If The Book Is Good, Is About Something That You Know, And Is Truly Written, And Reading It Over You See That This Is So, You Can Let The Boys Yip And The Noise Will Have That Pleasant Sound Coyotes Make On A Very Cold Night When They Are Out In The Snow And You Are In Your Own Cabin That You Have Built Or Paid For With Your Work.

Everything Is Your Fault If You're Any Damn Good.

All You Have To Do Is Write One True Sentence. Write The Truest Sentence That You Know.

This Was The Price You Paid For Sleeping Together. This Was The End Of The Trap. This Was What People Got For Loving Each Other.

Write Hard And Clear About What Hurts.

The Bicycle Riders Drank Much Wine, And Were Burned And Browned By The Sun. They Did Not Take The Race Seriously Except Among Themselves.

If A Writer Stops Observing He Is Finished. Experience Is Communicated By Small Details Intimately Observed.

Love Is Infinitely More Endurable Than Hate.

There Are Only Three Sports: Bullfighting, Motor Racing, And Mountaineering; All The Rest Are Merely Games.

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

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

I Am One Of Those Who Like To Stay Late At The Cafe," The Older Waiter Said. "with All Those Who Do Not Want To Go To Bed. With All Those Who Need A Light For The Night." "i Want To Go Home And Into Bed." "we Are Of Two Different Kinds," The Older Waiter Said. He Was Now Dressed To Go Home. "it Is Not Only A Question Of Youth And Confidence Although Those Things Are Very Beautiful. Each Night. I Am Reluctant To Close Up Because There May Be Someone Who Needs The Cafe.

Optimism Can Keep A Fool From Accepting Failure.

It Was Considered A Virtue Not To Talk Unnecessarily At Sea.

Poor Faulkner. Does He Really Think Big Emotions Come From Big Words?

Write Drunk; Edit Sober.

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

The Best People Possess A Feeling For Beauty, The Courage To Take Risks, The Discipline To Tell The Truth, The Capacity For Sacrifice. Ironically, Their Virtues Make Them Vulnerable; They Are Often Wounded, Sometimes Destroyed.

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

No Good Book Has Ever Been Written That Has In It Symbols Arrived At Beforehand And Stuck In. ... I Tried To Make A Real Old Man, A Real Boy, A Real Sea And A Real Fish And Real Sharks. But If I Made Them Good And True Enough They Would Mean Many Things

For A True Writer Each Book Should Be A New Beginning, Where He Tries Again For Something That Is Beyond Attainment.

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.

We Have Come Out Of The Time When Obedience, The Acceptance Of Discipline, Intelligent Courage And Resolution Were Most Important, Into That More Difficult Time When It Is A Man's Duty To Understand His World Rather Than Simply Fight For It.

To Invent Out Of Knowledge Means To Produce Inventions That Are True. Every Man Should Have A Built-in Automatic Crap Detector Operating Inside Him. It Also Should Have A Manual Drill And A Crank Handle In Case The Machine Breaks Down. If You're Going To Write, You Have To Find Out What's Bad For You. Part Of That You Learn Fast, And Then You Learn What's Good For You.

I Don't Think I Ever Owned Twenty Pencils At One Time. Wearing Down Seven Number-two Pencils Is A Good Day's Work.

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

Unhappy Childhood

Everybody Has Strange Things That Mean Things To Them. You Couldn't Help It.

My Big Fish Must Be Somewhere.

You Never Understand Anybody That Loves You.

There Isnt Always An Explanation For Everything.

Keep Right On Lying To Me. That's What I Want You To Do.

Farewell To Arms

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.

Being Against Evil Doesn't Make You Good. Tonight I Was Against It And Then I Was Evil Myself. I Could Feel It Coming Just Like A Tide... I Just Want To Destroy Them. But When You Start Taking Pleasure In It You Are Awfully Close To The Thing You're Fighting.

I Started Out Very Quiet And I Beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I Trained Hard And I Beat Mr. De Maupassant. I've Fought Two Draws With Mr. Stendhal, And I Think I Had An Edge In The Last One. But Nobody's Going To Get Me In Any Ring With Mr. Tolstoy Unless I'm Crazy Or I Keep Getting Better.

It Wasn't By Accident That The Gettysburg Address Was So Short.

You Know That Fiction, Prose Rather, Is Possibly The Roughest Trade Of All In Writing. You Do Not Have The Reference, The Old Important Reference. You Have The Sheet Of Blank Paper, The Pencil, And The Obligation To Invent Truer Than Things Can Be True. You Have To Take What Is Not Palpable And Make It Completely Palpable And Also Have It Seem Normal And So That It Can Become A Part Of Experience Of The Person Who Reads It.

Now He Would Never Write The Things That He Had Saved To Write Until He Knew Enough To Write Them Well. Well, He Would Not Have To Fail At Trying To Write Them Either. Maybe You Could Never Write Them, And That Was Why You Put Them Off And Delayed The Starting. Well He Would Never Know, Now.

Procrastination

To Stay In Places And To Leave, To Trust, To Distrust, To No Longer Believe And Believe Again, . . . To Watch The Snow Come, To Watch It Go, To Hear Rain On A Tent, To Know Where I Can Find What I Want.

But You Always Fall For Somebody Else And Then It's All Right. Fall For Them But Don't Let Them Ruin You.

Intelligence Is So Damn Rare And The People Who Have It Often Have Such A Bad Time With It That They Get Bitter Or Propagandistic And Then It's Not Much Use.

Real Seriousness In Regard To Writing Being One Of The Two Absolute Necessities. The Other, Unfortunately, Is Talent.

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

He Did Not Care For The Lying At First. He Hated It. Then Later He Had Come To Like It. It Was Part Of Being An Insider But It Was A Very Corrupting Business.

Got Tight On Absinthe Last Night. Did Knife Tricks.

Try To Learn To Breathe Deeply, Really To Taste Food When You Eat, And When You Sleep, Really To Sleep. Try As Much As Possible To Be Wholly Alive With All Your Might, And When You Laugh, Laugh Like Hell. And When You Get Angry, Get Good And Angry. Try To Be Alive. You Will Be Dead Soon Enough.

How Little We Know Of What There Is To Know. I Wish That I Were Going To Live A Long Time Instead Of Going To Die Today Because I Have Learned Much About Life In These Four Days; More, I Think Than In All Other Time. I'd Like To Be An Old Man To Really Know. I Wonder If You Keep On Learning Or If There Is Only A Certain Amount Each Man Can Understand. I Thought I Knew So Many Things That I Know Nothing Of. I Wish There Was More Time.

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.

In Africa A Thing Is True At First Light And A Lie By Noon And You Have No More Respect For It Than For The Lovely, Perfect Wood-fringed Lake You See Across The Sun-baked Salt Plain. You Have Walked Across That Plain In The Morning And You Know That No Such Lake Is There. But Now It Is There Absolutely True, Beautiful And Believable.

You Make Your Own Luck, Gig. You Know What Makes A Good Loser? Practice.

Write The Best Story That You Can And Write It As Straight As You Can.

The Thing Is To Become A Master And In Your Old Age To Acquire The Courage To Do What Children Did When They Knew Nothing.

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.

There Are Many Good Fishermen And Some Great Ones. But There Is Only One You.

Wars Are Caused By Undefended Wealth.

A Man Does Not Exist Until He Is Drunk.

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.

Don't You Like To Write Letters? I Do Because It's Such A Swell Way To Keep From Working And Yet Feel You've Done Something.

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