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The Only Place Where You Could See Life And Death, I. E., Violent Death Now That The Wars Were Over, Was In The Bull Ring And I Wanted Very Much To Go To Spain Where I Could Study It. I Was Trying To Learn To Write, Commencing With The Simplest Things, And One Of The Simplest Things Of All And The Most Fundamental Is Violent Death.

-Ernest Hemingway

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The Only Place Where

Ernest Hemingway

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The Only Place Where You Could See Life And Death, I. E., Violent Death Now That The Wars Were Over, Was In The Bull Ring And I Wanted Very Much To Go To Spain Where I Could Study It. I Was Trying To Learn To Write, Commencing With The Simplest Things, And One Of The Simplest Things Of All And The Most Fundamental Is Violent Death.

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He Had Loved Too Much, Demanded Too Much, And He Wore It All Out.

All Modern American Literature Comes From One Book By Mark Twain Called Huckleberry Finn.

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.

A Writer Is Like A Gypsy. He Owes No Allegiance To Any Government. If He Is A Good Writer He Will Never Like Any Government He Lives Under. His Hand Should Be Against It And Its Hand Will Always Be Against Him.

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

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.

Later He Had Seen The Things That He Could Never Think Of And Later Still He Had Seen Much Worse.

I'm Tired Of Everybody. Please Forgive Me.

People Who Write Fiction, If They Had Not Taken It Up, Might Have Become Very Successful Liars.

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.

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.

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

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.

Find What Gave You Emotion; What The Action Was That Gave You Excitement. Then Write It Down Making It Clear So That The Reader Can See It Too. Prose Is Architecture, Not Interior Decoration, And The Baroque Is Over.

For Luck You Carried A Horse Chestnut And A Rabbit?s Foot In Your Right Pocket. The Fur Had Been Worn Off The Rabbit?s Foot Long Ago And The Bones And The Sinews Were Polished By The Wear. The Claws Scratched In The Lining Of Your Pocket And You Knew Your Luck Was Still There.

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

It's Harder To Write In The Third Person But The Advantage Is You Move Around Better.

The First And Most Important Thing Of All, At Least For Writers Today, Is To Strip Language Clean, To Lay It Bare Down To The Bone.

One Cat Just Leads To Another.

Listen," I Told Him. "don't Be So Tough So Early In The Morning. I'm Sure You've Cut Plenty Of People's Throats. I Haven't Even Had My Coffee Yet.

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

There Is No Rule On How To Write.

Every Day Above Earth Is A Good Day.

We Think. We Are Not Peasants. We Are Mechanics. But Even The Peasants Know Better Than To Believe In A War. Everybody Hates War. There Is A Class That Control A Country That Is Stupid And Down Not Realise Anything And Never Can. That Is Why We Have This War. Also They Make Money Out Of It.

Failure And Well-disguised Cowardice Are More Human And More Beloved.

Because Fascism Is A Lie, It Is Condemned To Literary Sterility. And When It Is Past, It Will Have No History, Except The Bloody History Of Murder.

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

Rush, That Most Exciting Perversion Of Life, The Necessity Of Accomplishing Something In Less Time Than Should Be Truly Allowed For Its Doing.

Accomplishing Something

In The Morning There Was A Big Wind Blowing And The Waves Were Running High Up On The Beach And He Was Awake A Long Time Before He Remembered That His Heart Was Broken.

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.

There Isnt Always An Explanation For Everything.

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

Nothing To Lose

We Wait Always For Something That Does Not Come.

It's Silly Not To Hope. It's A Sin He Thought.

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's None Of Their Business That You Have To Learn How To Write. Let Them Think You Were Born That Way.

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.

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.

Optimism Can Keep A Fool From Accepting Failure.

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

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

Cowardice, As Distinguished From Panic, Is Almost Always Simply A Lack Of Ability To Suspend The Functioning Of The Imagination. Learning To Suspend Your Imagination And Live Completely In The Very Second Of The Present With No Before And No After Is The Greatest Gift A Soldier Can Acquire.

Yes, They Have More Money.

My Heart's Broken,' He Thought. 'if I Feel This Way My Heart Must Be Broken.

Never Mistake Motion For Action.

Always Do Sober What You Said You'd Do Drunk. That Will Teach You To Keep Your Mouth Shut.

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.

I Mistrust All Frank And Simple People, Especially When Their Stories Hold Together

Night Is Always Darker Before The Dawn And Life Is The Same, The Hard Times Will Pass, Every Thing Will Get Better And Sun Will Shine Brighter Then Ever.

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

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

Farewell To Arms

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

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.

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

Thou Wilt Go Now, Rabbit. But I Go With Thee. As Long As There Is One Of Us There Is Both Of Us.

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.

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

The Educated Man Is The Man Who Can Do Something. The Quality Of His Work Marks The Degree Of His Education.

You Have It Now And That Is All Your Whole Life Is; Now. There Is Nothing Else Than Now. There Is Neither Yesterday, Certainly, Nor Is There Any Tomorrow.

A Bottle Of Wine Was Good Company.

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

Things May Not Be Immediately Discernible In What A Man Writes, And In This Sometimes He Is Fortunate; But Eventually They Are Quite Clear And By These And The Degree Of Alchemy That He Possesses He Will Endure Or Be Forgotten.

Do Not Think About Sin, He Thought. There Are Enough Problems Now Without Sin. Also I Have No Understanding Of It.

Wars Are Spinach. Life In General Is The Tough Part. In War All You Have To Do Is Not Worry And Know How To Read A Map And Co-ordinates.

Never Mistake Motive For Action.

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

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

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

After Writing A Story I Was Always Empty And Both Sad And Happy, As Though I Had Made Love.

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

Happiness In Intelligent People Is The Rarest Thing I Know.

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

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.

There Are The Two Curses Of Spain, The Bulls And The Priests.

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

Farewell To Arms

No, That Is The Great Fallacy: The Wisdom Of Old Men. They Do Not Grow Wise. They Grow Careful.

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

Personal Columnists Are Jackals And No Jackal Has Been Known To Live On Grass Once He Had Learned About Meat - No Matter Who Killed The Meat For Him.

No Catalogue Of Horrors Ever Kept Men From War. Before The War You Always Think That It's Not You That Dies. But You Will Die, Brother, If You Go To It Long Enough.

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.

Kilimanjaro Is A Snow-covered Mountain 19,710 Feet High, And Is Said To Be The Highest Mountain In Africa. Its Western Summit Is Called The Masai 'ngaje Ngai', The House Of God. Close To The Western Summit There Is A Dried And Frozen Carcas Of A Leopard. No One Has Explained What The Leopard Was Seeking At That Altitude.

A Man's Got To Take A Lot Of Punishment To Write A Really Funny Book.

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

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.

Anyone Who Says He Wants To Be A Writer And Isn't Writing, Doesn't.

Do Not Worry. You Have Always Written Before And You Will Write Now.

If A Writer Of Prose Knows Enough About What He Is Writing About He May Omit Things That He Knows And The Reader, If The Writer Is Writing Truly Enough, Will Have A Feeling Of Those Things As Strongly As Though The Writer Had Stated Them. The Dignity Of Movement Of An Iceberg Is Due To Only One-eighth Of It Being Above Water. A Writer Who Omits Things Because He Does Not Know Them Only Makes Hollow Places In His Writing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

You Know You’re Writing Well When You're Throwing Good Stuff Into The Wastebasket.

There Is Seven-eights Of It Under Water For Every Part That Shows. Anything You Know You Can Eliminate And It Only Strengthens Your Iceberg. It Is The Part That Doesn't Show. If A Writer Omits Something Because He Does Not Know It Then There Is A Hole In The Story.

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

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.

I Would Like To Take The Great Dimaggio Fishing," The Old Man Said. "they Say His Father Was A Fisherman. Maybe He Was As Poor As We Are And Would Understand.

There Are Worse Places To Be Than On Your Own.

Show The Readers Everything, Tell Them Nothing.

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

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.

I've Been Wondering About Dostoyevsky. How Can A Man Write So Badly, So Unbelievably Badly, And Make You Feel So Deeply?

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.

Before You Quit, You Have To Try

You Never Understand Anybody That Loves You.

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.

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

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.

Switzerland Is A Small, Steep Country, Much More Up And Down Than Sideways, And Is All Stuck Over With Large Brown Hotels Built On The Cuckoo Clock Style Of Architecture.

'safety', The Wife Of Pablo Said. 'there Is No Such Thing As Safety. There Are So Many Seeking Safety Here Now That They Make A Great Danger. In Seeking Safety Now You Lose All.'

What Did I Know Best That I Had Not Written About And Lost? What Did I Know About Truly And Care For The Most?

I Felt Very Lonely When They Were All There.

They Were Beaten To Start With. They Were Beaten When They Took Them From Their Farms And Put Them In The Army. That Is Why The Peasant Has Wisdom, Because He Is Defeated From The Start. Put Him In Power And See How Wise He Is.

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.

Remember Everything Is Right Until It's Wrong. You'll Know When It's Wrong.

Remembers Everything

Isn't It Pretty To Think So.

When You Have Shot One Bird Flying You Have Shot All Birds Flying. They Are All Different And They Fly In Different Ways But The Sensation Is The Same And The Last One Is As Good As The First.

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.

It Is Very Bad For (an Artist) To Talk About How He (creates). It Is Not The (artist's) Province To Explain Or To Run Guided Tours Through The More Difficult Country Of His Work. It's None Of Their Business That You Had To Learn. Let Them Think You Were Born That Way.

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

All Bad Writers Are In Love With The Epic.

Fish," He Said Softly, Aloud, "i'll Stay With You Until I Am Dead.

Don't You Ever Get The Feeling That All Your Life Is Going By And You're Not Taking Advantage Of It? Do You Realize You've Lived Nearly Half The Time You Have To Live Already?

Live Life To The Fullest

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

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

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

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.

The Best Way To Find Out If You Can Trust Somebody Is To Trust Them.

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 Was Always Embarresed By The Words 'sacred,' 'glorious,' And 'sacrifice' And The Expression 'in Vain.' We Had Heard Them, Sometimes Standing In The Rain Almost Out Of Earshot, So That Only The Shouted Words Came Through, And Had Read Them On Proclamations That Were Slapped Up By Billposters Over Other Proclamations, Now For A Long Time, And I Had Seen Nothing Sacred, And The Things That Were Glorious Had No Glory And The Sacrifices Were Like The Stock Yards At Chicago If Nothing Was Done With The Meat Except To Bury It.

Poor Faulkner. Does He Really Think Big Emotions Come From Big Words? He Thinks I Don’t Know The Ten-dollar Words. I Know Them All Right. But There Are Older And Simpler And Better Words, And Those Are The Ones I Use.

The Further You Go In Writing The More Alone You Are.

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

To Hell With Them. Nothing Hurts If You Don't Let It.

I Did Not Care What It Was All About. All I Wanted To Know Was How To Live In It. Maybe If You Found Out How To Live In It You Learned From That What Is Was All About.

The Most Beautiful Fighting Machine I Have Ever Seen

You Must Be Prepared To Work Always Without Applause.

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

When I Saw My Wife Again Standing By The Tracks As The Train Came In By The Piled Logs At The Station, I Wished I Had Died Before I Had Ever Loved Anyone But Her.

I Loved Her And I Loved No One Else And We Had A Lovely Magic Time While We Were Alone. I Worked Well And We Made Great Trips, And I Thought We Were Invulnerable Again, And It Wasn't Until We Were Out Of The Mountains In Late Spring, And Back In Paris, That The Other Thing Started Again.

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

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.

I Never Had To Choose A Subject - My Subject Rather Chose Me.

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.

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

Creation's Probably Overrated. After All, God Made The World In Only Six Days And Rested On The Seventh.

Fascism Is A Lie Told By Bullies.

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

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

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

So Far, 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.

No; That Doesn't Interest Me.' 'that's Because You Never Read A Book About It.

Do You Know How An Ugly Woman Feels? Do You Know What It Is To Be Ugly All Your Life And Inside To Feel That You Are Beautiful? It Is Very Rare.

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

War Is No Longer Made By Simply Analyzed Economic Forces If It Ever Was. War Is Made Or Planned Now By Individual Men, Demagogues And Dictators Who Play On The Patriotism Of Their People To Mislead Them Into A Belief In The Great Fallacy Of War When All Their Vaunted Reforms Have Failed To Satisfy The People They Misrule.

Everything You Have Is To Give. Thou Art A Phenomenon Of Philosophy And An Unfortunate Man.

Ascensions Into Heaven Are Like Falling Leaves Sad And Happy All At The Same Time Going Away Isn't Really Sad Especially When Your Going Enables A New Kind Of Presence To Be Born.

There Is Nothing Else Than Now. There Is Neither Yesterday, Certainly, Nor Is There Any Tomorrow. How Old Must You Be Before You Know That? There Is Only Now, And If Now Is Only Two Days, Then Two Days Is Your Life And Everything In It Will Be In Proportion. This Is How You Live A Life In Two Days. And If You Stop Complaining And Asking For What You Never Will Get, You Will Have A Good Life. A Good Life Is Not Measured By Any Biblical Span.

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

If Two People Love Each Other There Can Be No Happy End To It.

Some Writers Are Only Born To Help Another Writer Write One Sentence.

I Still Need More Healthy Rest In Order To Work At My Best. My Health Is The Main Capital I Have And I Want To Administer It Intelligently.

The Only Decent Bone In Her Body Was Mine.

Let Him Think Is I Am More Man Than I Am And I Will Be So.

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.

We All Take A Beating Every Day, You Know, One Way Or Another.

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?

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.

The Great Thing Is To Last And Get Your Work Done And See And Hear And Learn And Understand; And Write When There Is Something That You Know; And Not Before, And Not Too Damned Much After.

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

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

Where A Man Feels At Home, Outside Of Where He’s Born, Is Where He’s Meant To Go.

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

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.

My Big Fish Must Be Somewhere.

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.

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.

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

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.

We Have Very Primitive Emotions,” He Said . “it's Impossible Not To Be Competitive. Spoils Everything, Though.

Hombre, There Are Bodegas Open All Night Long.

Some Other Places Were Not So Good But Maybe We Were Not So Good When We Were In Them.

I Spend A Hell Of A Lot Of Time Killing Animals And Fish So I Wouldn't Kill Myself. When A Man Is In Rebellion Against Death, As I Am In Rebellion Against Death, He Gets Pleasure Out Of Taking To Himself One Of The Godlike Attributes; That Of Giving It.

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

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.

Don't You Drink? I Notice You Speak Slightingly Of The Bottle. I Have Drunk Since I Was Fifteen And Few Things Have Given Me More Pleasure.

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

Try And Write Straight English; Never Using Slang Except In Dialogue And Then Only When Unavoidable. Because All Slang Goes Sour In A Short Time. I Only Use Swear Words, For Example, That Have Lasted At Least A Thousand Years For Fear Of Getting Stuff That Will Be Simply Timely And Then Go Sour.

There Are Some Things Which Cannot Be Learned Quickly, And Time, Which Is All We Have, Must Be Paid Heavily For Their Acquiring. They Are The Very Simplest Things And Because It Takes A Man's Life To Know Them The Little That Each Man Gets From Life Is Very Costly And The Only Heritage He Has To Leave.

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

I Write Description In Longhand Because That's Hardest For Me And You're Closer To The Paper When You Work By Hand, But I Use The Typewriter For Dialogue Because People Speak Like A Typewriter Works.

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.

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

Details Make Stories Human, And The More Human A Story Can Be, The Better.

I Was Trying To Write Then And I Found The Greatest Difficulty, Aside From Knowing What You Really Felt, Rather That What You Were Supposed To Feel, And Had Been Taught To Feel, Was To Put Down What Really Happened In Action; What The Actual Things Which Produced The Emotion That You Experienced.

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

Imagination? It Is The One Thing Beside Honesty That A Good Writer Must Have. The More He Learns From Experience The More He Can Imagine.

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