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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.

-Ernest Hemingway

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War Is No Longer

Ernest Hemingway

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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.

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Honor To A Spaniard, No Matter How Dishonest, Is As Real A Thing As Water, Wine, Or Olive Oil. There Is Honor Among Pickpockets And Honor Among Whores. It Is Simply That The Standards Differ.

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

All Stories, If Continued Far Enough, End In Death.

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

Farewell To Arms

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.

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.

(world War I) Was The Most Colossal, Murderous, Mismanaged Butchery That Has Ever Taken Place On Earth. Any Writer Who Said Otherwise Lied, So The Writers Either Wrote Propaganda, Shut Up, Or Fought.

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

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.

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

Worry Destroys The Ability To Write.

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

Lost Generation

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.

Often A Man Wishes To Be Alone And A Girl Wishes To Be Alone Too And If They Love Each Other They Are Jealous Of That In Each Other, But I Can Truly Say We Never Felt That. We Could Feel Alone When We Were Together, Alone Against The Others. But We Were Never Lonely And Never Afraid When We Were Together.

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

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

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

Farewell To Arms

[never Give Up Hope. Never Give In To Pessimism. Never Despair.] No Horse Named Morbid Ever Won A Race!

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

That Every Day Should Be A Fiesta Seemed To Me A Wonderful Discovery.

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.

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

The Only Decent Bone In Her Body Was Mine.

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

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

When You Start To Live Outside Yourself, It's All Dangerous.

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

Human Condition

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

A Bottle Of Wine Was Good Company.

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

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

Now Catherine Would Die. That Was What You Did. You Died. You Did Not Know What It Was About. You Never Had Time To Learn. They Threw You In And Told You The Rules And The First Time They Caught You Off Base They Killed You. Or They Killed You Gratuitously Like Aymo. Or Gave You The Syphilis Like Rinaldi. But They Killed You In The End. You Could Count On That. Stay Around And They Would Kill You.

Farewell To Arms

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

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

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.

Now, Being In Africa, I Was Hungry For More Of It, The Changes Of The Seasons, The Rains With No Need To Travel, The Discomforts That You Paid To Make It Real, The Names Of The Trees, Of The Small Animals, And All The Birds, To Know The Language And Have Time To Be In It And To Move Slowly.

Since I Had Started To Break Down All My Writing And Get Rid Of All Facility And Try To Make Instead Of Describe, Writing Had Been Wonderful To Do.

But Did Thee Feel The Earth Move?

A Good Life Is Not Measured By Any Biblical Span.

You Make Something From Things That Have Happened And From Things That Exist And From All Things That You Know And All Those You Cannot Know, And You Make Something Through Your Invention That Is Truer Than Anything True And Alive, And If You Make It Well Enough, You Give It Immortality.

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

I Think You Should Learn About Writing From Everybody Who Has Ever Written That Has Anything To Teach You

There Is No Hunting Like The Hunting Of Man, And Those Who Have Hunted Armed Men Long Enough And Liked It, Never Care For Anything Else Thereafter.

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

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

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.

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.

You Know I Don't Love Any One But You. You Shouldn't Mind Because Some One Else Loved Me.

Farewell To Arms

I Am Thee And Thou Art Me And All Of One Is The Other.

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.

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.

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

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

Here Is The Piece. If You Can't Say Fornicate Can You Say Copulate Or If Not That Can You Say Co-habit? If Not That Would Have To Say Consummate I Suppose. Use Your Own Good Taste And Judgment.

Taste And Judgment

When Things Are Going Well, I Like To Have People To Share It With. I've Been Alone In Troubled Times, And I Don't Mind That. Some Things Have To Be Endured Alone. As Hemingway Said, The Human Being Is Strong In All The Broken Places.

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

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.

Yes, They Have More Money.

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

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

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

I Don’t. I Don’t Want Anybody Else To Touch You. I’m Silly. I Get Furious If They Touch You.

Farewell To Arms

He Would Lie In The Bed And Finally, With Daylight, He Would Go To Sleep. After All, He Said To Himself, It Is Probably Only Insomnia. Many Must Have It.

To Hell With Luck. I'll Bring The Luck With Me.

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

Scott Fitzgerald

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

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.

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.

God Knows I Didn't Mean To Fall In Love With Her

Falling In Love

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

All Bad Writers Are In Love With The Epic.

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

Survival, With Honor, That Outmoded And All-important Word, Is As Difficult As Ever And As All-important To A Writer. Those Who Do Not Last Are Always More Beloved Since No One Has To See Them In Their Long, Dull, Unrelenting, No-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, Fights That They Make To Do Something As They Believe It Should Be Done Before They Die. Those Who Die Or Quit Early And Easy And With Every Good Reason Are Preferred Because They Are Understandable And Human. Failure And Well-disguised Cowardice Are More Human And More Beloved.

Never Mistake Motive For Action.

But After I Got Them To Leave And Shut The Door And Turned Off The Light It Wasn't Any Good. It Was Like Saying Good-by To A Statue. After A While I Went Out And Left The Hospital And Walked Back To The Hotel In The Rain.

What A Writer Has To Do Is Write What Hasn't Been Written Before Or Beat Dead Men At What They Have Done.

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

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.

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

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

I Don't Like To Leave Anything,' The Man Said. 'i Don't Like To Leave Things Behind.

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

The Clouds Were Building Up Now For The Trade Wind And He Looked Ahead And Saw A Flight Of Wild Ducks Etching Themselves Against The Sky Over The Water, Then Blurring, Then Etching Again And He Knew No Man Was Ever Alone On The Sea.

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.

Never Mistake Movement For Action

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.

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.

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

Until You're Grown-up They Send You To Reform School. After You're Grown-up They Send You To The Penitentiary.

The Good Parts Of A Book May Be Only Something A Writer Is Lucky Enough To Overhear Or It May Be The Wreck Of His Whole Damn Life - And One Is As Good As Another.

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

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.

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

I Love Sleep. My Life Has The Tendency To Fall Apart When I'm Awake, You Know?

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.

Before You Quit, You Have To Try

Everybody Has Something Wrong With Them.

How Simple The Writing Of Literature Would Be If It Were Only Necessary To Write In Another Way What Has Been Well Written. It Is Because We Have Had Such Great Writers In The Past That A Writer Is Driven Far Out Past Where He Can Go, Out To Where No One Can Help Him.

It Is Silly Not To Hope, Besides I Believe It Is A Sin." The Old Man And The Sea

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

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.

It Was A Pleasant Cafe, Warm And Clean And Friendly, And I Hung Up My Old Water-proof On The Coat Rack To Dry And Put My Worn And Weathered Felt Hat On The Rack Above The Bench And Ordered A Cafe Au Lait. The Waiter Brought It And I Took Out A Notebook From The Pocket Of The Coat And A Pencil And Started To Write.

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

Fascism Is A Lie Told By Bullies.

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

I Wish I Could Write Well Enough To Write About Aircraft. Faulkner Did It Very Well In Pylon But You Cannot Do Something Someone Else Has Done Though You Might Have Done It If They Hadn't.

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.

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

Only That Which Makes You Feel Bad After Doing Is Immoral.

You May Talk. And I May Listen. And Miracles Might Happen.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

A Continent Ages Quickly Once We Come. The Natives Live In Harmony With It. But The Foreigner Destroys, Cuts Down The Trees, Drains The Water, So That The Water Supply Is Altered, And In A Short Time The Soil, Once The Sod Is Turned Under, Is Cropped Out And, Next, It Starts To Blow Away As It Has Blown Away In Every Old Country And As I Had Seen It Start To Blow In Canada. The Earth Gets Tired Of Being Exploited.

The Only Kind Of Writing Is Rewriting.

My Writing Is Nothing, My Boxing Is Everything.

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.

Retirement Is The Ugliest Word In The Language.

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.

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.

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

There Is No Lonelier Man In Death, Except The Suicide, Than That Man Who Has Lived Many Years With A Good Wife And Then Outlived Her. If Two People Love Each Other There Can Be No Happy End To 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 ... 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.

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

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

Being Against Evil Doesn't Make You Good.

Good Against Evil

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.

The World Was Not Wheeling Anymore. It Was Just Very Clear And Bright And Inclined To Blur At The Edges.

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

My Working Habits Are Simple: Long Periods Of Thinking, Short Periods Of Writing.

I Am Always In Love.

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.

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

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

A Serious Writer Is Not To Be Confounded With A Solemn Writer. A Serious Writer May Be A Hawk Or A Buzzard Or Even A Popinjay, But A Solemn Writer Is Always A Bloody Owl.

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.

Writing, At Its Best, Is A Lonely Life.

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

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

Wars Are Caused By Undefended Wealth.

Men Cannot Act Before The Camera In The Presence Of Death.

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

Write Hard And Clear About What Hurts.

In Order To Write About Life First You Must Live It.

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

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

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

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

The One Who Is Doing His Work And Getting Satisfaction From It Is Not The One The Poverty Bothers.

Dying Is A Very Simple Thing. I've Looked At Death And Really I Know. If I Should Have Died It Would Have Been Very Easy For Me. Quite The Easiest Thing I Ever Did. But The People At Home Do Not Realize That. They Suffer A Thousand Times More.

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.

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

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.

The Fools Think I Am Writing Algebra But What I Am Really Writing Is Geometry.

The Only Thing That Could Spoil A Day Was People. People Were Always The Limiters Of Happiness Except For The Very Few That Were As Good As Spring Itself.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

A Wine Shop Was Open And I Went In For Some Coffee. It Smelled Of Early Morning, Of Swept Dust, Spoons In Coffee-glasses And The Wet Circles Left By Wine Glasses.

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

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

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.

When You Give Power To An Executive You Do Not Know Who Will Be Filling That Position When The Time Of Crisis Comes.

Times Of Crisis

A Severed Femoral Artery Empties Itself Faster Than You Can Believe.

When You Stop Doing Things For Fun You Might As Well Be Dead.

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

The Only Thing That Can Ruin A Good Day Is People.

Any Man's Life, Told Truly, Is A Novel.

You're Awfully Dark, Brother," He Said. "you Don't Know How Dark.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

And You Treat Me Wonderfully And Keep All Your Promises.

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

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

First, There Must Be Talent. . .then There Must Be Discipline. . .then There Must Be. . .and Absolute Conscience. . .to Prevent Faking.

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

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.

We Wait Always For Something That Does Not Come.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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