Ernest Hemingway Quotes

Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

Please understand and love me.

In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dulled and know I had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well oiled in the closet, but unused.

People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.

But perhaps he had enough animal strength and detached intelligence that he could make another start.

Red Dog smiled. 'I would like you to meet my friends Mr Sitting Bull, Mr Poisoned Buffalo, and Chief Running Skunk-Backwards.'
'Sitting Bull's a name I know,' Yogi remarked, shaking hands.
'Oh, I'm not one of those Sitting Bulls,' Mr Sitting Bull said.

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. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.

When a man is still in rebellion against death he has pleasure in taking to himself one of the Godlike attributes; that of giving it.

His choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries. My choice was to go there to find him beyond all people. Beyond all people in the world. Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us.

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.

don't ask me a lot of questions if you don't like the answers

I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.

Strong in all the Broken Places

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.

Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.