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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.

-Ernest Hemingway

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This Looking And Not

Ernest Hemingway

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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.

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That Terrible Mood Of Depression Of Whether It's Any Good Or Not Is What Is Known As The Artist's Reward.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

But Perhaps He Had Enough Animal Strength And Detached Intelligence That He Could Make Another Start.

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 Mistake Movement For Action

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

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

The Brave Dies Perhaps Two Thousand Deaths If He's Intelligent. He Simply Doesn't Mention Them.

Worry A Little Bit Every Day And In A Lifetime You Will Lose A Couple Of Years. If Something Is Wrong, Fix It If You Can. But Train Yourself Not To Worry: Worry Never Fixes Anything.

The First Draft Of Anything Is Sh*t.

Some Lived In It And Never Felt It But He Knew It All Was Nada Y Pues Nada Y Nada Y Pues Nada.

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.

And Another Thing. Don’t Ever Kid Yourself About Loving Some One. It Is Just That Most People Are Not Lucky Enough Ever To Have It. You Never Had It Before And Now You Have It. What You Have With Maria, Whether It Lasts Just Through Today And A Part Of Tomorrow, Or Whether It Lasts For A Long Life Is The Most Important Thing That Can Happen To A Human Being. There Will Always Be People Who Say It Does Not Exist Because They Cannot Have It. But I Tell You It Is True And That You Have It And That You Are Lucky Even If You Die Tomorrow.

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

Wearing Down Seven Number Two Pencils Is A Good Day's Work.

Everyone Behaves Badly--given The Chance.

Ronda Is The Place Where To Go, If You Are Planning To Travel To Spain For A Honeymoon Or For Being With A Girlfriend. The Whole City And Its Surroundings Are A Romantic Set. ... Nice Promenades, Good Wine, Excellent Food, Nothing To Do.

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.

He Did Not Say That Because He Knew That If You Said A Good Thing It Might Not Happen.

Until The Dead Are Buried They Change Somewhat In Appearance Each Day. The Color Change In Caucasian Races Is From White To Yellow, To Yellow-green, To Black. If Left Long Enough In The Heat The Flesh Comes To Resemble Coal-tar, Especially Where It Has Been Broken Or Torn, And It Has Quite A Visible Tarlike Iridescence. The Dead Grow Larger Each Day Until Sometimes They Become Quite Too Big For Their Uniforms, Filling These Until They Seem Blown Tight Enough To Burst. The Individual Members May Increase In Girth To An Unbelievable Extent And Faces Fill As Taut And Globular As Balloons.

He Saw The Girl Watching Him And He Smiled At Her. It Was An Old Smile That He Had Been Using For Fifty Years, Ever Since He First Smiled.

What I Learned Constructive About Women, Not Just Ethics Like Never Blame Them If They Pox You Because Somebody Poxed Them And Lots Of Times They Don't Even Know They Have It — That's In The First Reader For Squares — Is, No Matter How They Get, Always Think Of Them The Way They Were On The Best Day They Ever Had.

I'm With You. No Matter What Else You Have In Your Head I'm With You And I Love You.

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?

In Those Days, There Was No Money To Buy Books.

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

I Don't Feel Any Way,' The Girl Said. 'i Just Know Things.

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

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

Let’s Not Talk About How I Am. It’s A Subject I Know Too Much About To Want To Think About Anymore.

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.

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.

Fear Of Death Increases In Exact Proportion To Increase In Wealth.

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.

Your Blood Coagulates Beautifully.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Somebody Just Back Of You While You Are Fishing Is As Bad As Someone Looking Over Your Shoulder While You Write A Letter To Your Girl.

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.

You Know Lots Of Criticism Is Written By Characters Who Are Very Academic And Think It Is A Sign You Are Worthless If You Make Jokes Or Kid Or Even Clown. I Wouldn't Kid Our Lord If He Was On The Cross. But I Would Attempt A Joke With Him If I Ran Into Him Chasing The Money Changers Out Of The Temple.

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

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.

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

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.

Read Anything I Write For The Pleasure Of Reading It. Whatever Else You Find Will Be The Measure Of What You Brought To The Reading.

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

You Must Be Prepared To Work Always Without Applause.

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

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

Unhappy Childhood

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.

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

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.

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

Drinking Wine Was Not A Snobbism Nor A Sign Of Sophistication Nor A Cult; It Was As Natural As Eating And To Me As Necessary.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Wish I Had Died Before I Ever Loved Anyone But Her.

Any Man Who Eats Dessert Is Not Drinking Enough.

In War, One Cannot Say What One Feels.

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.

The Fish Is My Friend Too...i Have Never Seen Or Heard Of Such A Fish. But I Must Kill Him. I Am Glad We Do Not Have To Try To Kill The Stars. Imagine If Each Day A Man Must Try To Kill The Moon, He Thought. The Moon Runs Away. But Imagine If A Man Each Day Should Have To Try To Kill The Sun? We Were Born Lucky; He Thought

Listen Now. When People Talk Listen Completely. Don't Be Thinking What You're Going To Say. Most People Never Listen. Nor Do They Observe.

Writing Is Something That You Can Never Do As Well As It Can Be Done. It Is A Perpetual Challenge And It Is More Difficult Than Anything Else That I Have Ever Done.

My Big Fish Must Be Somewhere.

An Aggressive War Is The Great Crime Against Everything Good In The World. A Defensive War, Which Must Necessarily Turn To Aggressive At The Earliest Moment, Is The Necessary Great Counter-crime. But Never Think That War, No Matter How Necessary, Nor How Justified, Is Not A Crime. Ask The Infantry And Ask The Dead.

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.

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

He No Longer Dreamed Of Storms, Nor Of Women, Nor Of Great Occurrences, Nor Of Great Fish, Nor Fights, Nor Contests Of Strength, Nor Of His Wife. He Only Dreamed Of Places Now And The Lions On The Beach. They Played Like Young Cats In The Dusk And He Loved Them As He Loved The Boy. He Never Dreamed About The Boy. He Simply Woke, Looked Out The Open Door At The Moon And Unrolled His Trousers And Put Them On.

Oh, Darling, I've Been So Miserable.

Today Is Only One Day In All The Days That Will Ever Be. But What Will Happen In All The Other Days That Ever Come Can Depend On What You Do Today. It's Been That Way All This Year. It's Been That Way So Many Times. All Of War Is That Way.

I Believe That Basically You Write For Two People; Yourself To Try To Make It Absolutely Perfect; Or If Not That Then Wonderful. Then You Write For Who You Love Whether She Can Read Or Write Or Not And Whether She Is Alive Or Dead.

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

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.

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

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

Falling In Love

Never Fall In Love

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.

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.

Worry Destroys The Ability To Write.

Pound's Crazy. All Poets Are.... They Have To Be. You Don't Put A Poet Like Pound In The Loony Bin.

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

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.

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

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

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

Hombre, There Are Bodegas Open All Night Long.

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.

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

Life Breaks All Of Us But Some Of Us Get Stronger In The Broken Places.

And We Could Have All This,' She Said. 'and We Could Have Everything And Every Day We Make It More Impossible.' 'what Did You Say?' 'i Said We Could Have Everything.' 'we Can Have Everything.' 'no, We Can't.' 'we Can Have The Whole World.' 'no, We Can't.' 'we Can Go Everywhere.' 'no, We Can't. It Isn't Ours Anymore.' 'it's Ours.' 'no, It Isn't. And Once They Take It Away, You Never Get It Back.

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.

Ezra Was Right Half The Time, And When He Was Wrong, He Was So Wrong You Were Never In Any Doubt About It.

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.

Fortunately I Have Never Learned To Take The Good Advice I Give Myself Nor The Counsel Of My Fears.

Always Quit For The Day When You Know What You Want To Do Next.

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.

Work Could Cure Almost Anything

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

All Good Books Have One Thing In Common - They Are Truer Than If They Had Really Happened.

Farewell To Arms

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

The Best Ammunition Against Lies Is The Truth, There Is No Ammunition Against Gossip. It Is Like A Fog And The Clear Wind Blows It Away And The Sun Burns It Off.

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.

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

Anyone Can Be A Fisherman In May.

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

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.

One Battle Doesn't Make A Campagin, But Critics Treat One Book, Good Or Bad, Like A Whole War.

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.

I’m Trying In All My Stories To Get The Feeling Of The Actual Life Across—not To Just Depict Life—or Criticize It—but To Actually Make It Alive. So That When You Have Read Something By Me You Actually Experience The Thing. You Can’t Do This Without Putting In The Bad And The Ugly As Well As What Is Beautiful. Because If It Is All Beautiful You Can’t Believe In It. Things Aren’t That Way.

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.

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

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

Home Is Where The Heart Is, Home Is Where The Fart Is. Come Let Us Fart In The Home. There Is No Art In A Fart. Still A Fart May Not Be Artless. Let Us Fart And Artless Fart In The Home.

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

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. Almost No New Classics Resemble Other Previous Classics. At First People See Only The Awkwardness. Then They Are Not So Perceptible. When They Show So Very Awkwardly People Think These Awkwardnesses Are The Style And Many Copy Them. This Is Regrettable.

In The Early Morning On The Lake Sitting In The Stern Of The Boat With His Father Rowing, He Felt Quite Sure That He Would Never Die.

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.

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

Anglers Have A Way Of Romanticizing Their Battles With Fish And Of Forgetting That The Fish Has A Hook In His Mouth, His Gullet, Or His Belly And That His Gameness Is Really An Extreme Of Panic In Which He Runs, Leaps, And Pulls To Get Away Until He Dies. It Would Seem To Be Enough Advantage To The Angler That The Fish Has The Hook In His Mouth Rather Than The Angler.

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

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

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

No One Ever Stopped When They Were Winning.

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.

[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)

It's A Town You Come To For A Short Time.

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.

My,' She Said. 'we're Lucky That You Found The Place.' We're Always Lucky,' I Said And Like A Fool I Did Not Knock On Wood. There Was Wood Everywhere In That Apartment To Knock On Too.

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.

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.

My Attitude Toward Punctuation Is That It Ought To Be As Conventional As Possible. The Game Of Golf Would Lose A Good Deal If Croquet Mallets And Billiard Cues Were Allowed On The Putting Green. You Ought To Be Able To Show That You Can Do It A Good Deal Better Than Anyone Else With The Regular Tools Before You Have A License To Bring In Your Own Improvements.

Writing, At Its Best, Is A Lonely Life.

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

Write Drunk; Edit Sober.

There Were Many Words That You Could Not Stand To Hear And Finally Only The Names Of Places Had Dignity. Certain Numbers Were The Same Way And Certain Dates And These With The Names Of The Places Were All You Could Say And Have Them Mean Anything. 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.

Cowardice, As Distinguished From Panic, Is Almost Always Simply A Lack Of Ability To Suspend The Functioning Of The Imagination.

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

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.

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.

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.

It Is A Miserable Thing To Have People Writing About Your Private Life While You Are Alive. I Have Tried To Stop It All That I Could But There Have Been Many Abuses By People I Trusted. You Cannot Stop Trusting People In Life But I Have Learned To Be A Little Bit Careful. The Way To Make People Trust-worthy Is To Trust Them.

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

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.

But Paris Was A Very Old City And We Were Young And Nothing Was Simple There.

Being Against Evil Doesn't Make You Good.

Good Against Evil

Yes, They Have More Money.

The People That I Liked And Had Not Met Went To The Big Cafes Because They Were Lost In Them And No One Noticed Them And They Could Be Alone In Them And Be Together.

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.

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

I Do Not Think I Had Ever Seen A Nastier-looking Man. Under The Black Hat, When I Had First Seen Them, The Eyes Had Been Those Of An Unsuccessful Rapist.

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

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

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

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

Organizations For Writers Palliate The Writer's Loneliness, But I Doubt If They Improve His Writing.... For He Does His Work Alone And If He Is A Good Enough Writer He Must Face Eternity, Or The Lack Of It, Each Day.

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

We In America Should See That No Man Is Ever Given, No Matter How Gradually Or How Noble And Excellent The Man, The Power To Put This Country Into A War Which Is Now Being Prepared And Brought Closer Each Day With All The Pre-meditation Of A Long Planned Murder. For When You Give Power To An Executive You Do Not Know Who Will Be Filling That Position When The Time Of Crisis Comes.

Hesitation Increases In Relation To Risk In Equal Proportion To Age.

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.

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.

Wine Is A Grand Thing," I Said. "it Makes You Forget All The Bad.

Farewell To Arms

I've Seen A Lot Of Patriots And They All Died Just Like Anybody Else If It Hurt Bad Enough And Once They Were Dead Their Patriotism Was Only Good For Legends; It Was Bad For Their Prose And Made Them Write Bad Poetry. If You Are Going To Be A Great Patriot I.e. Loyal To Any Existing Order Of Government (not One Who Wishes To Destroy The Existing For Something Better) You Want To Be Killed Early If Your Life And Works Won't Stink.

It's Enough For You To Do It Once For A Few Men To Remember You. But If You Do It Year After Year, Then Many People Remember You And They Tell It To Their Children, And Their Children And Grandchildren Remember And, If It Concerns Books, They Can Read Them. And If It's Good Enough, It Will Last As Long As There Are Human Beings.

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?

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

Wine ... Offers A Greater Range For Enjoyment And Appreciation Than Possibly Any Other Purely Sensory Thing Which May Be Purchased.

Optimism Can Keep A Fool From Accepting Failure.

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

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.

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.

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

Happy Valentines Day

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.

Live The Full Life Of The Mind, Exhilarated By New Ideas, Intoxicated By The Romance Of The Unusual.

You're Beautiful, Like A May Fly.

You Re Beautiful

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.

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

I Decided That I Would Write One Story About Each Thing That I Knew About.

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

A Writer Should Be Of As Great Probity And Honesty As A Priest Of God. He Is Either Honest Or Not, As A Woman Is Either Chaste Or Not, And After One Piece Of Dishonest Writing He Is Never The Same Again.

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

In Order To Be A Great Writer A Person Must Have A Built-in, Shockproof Crap Detector.

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

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