Quotes from Ernest Hemingway

You have never heard me talk much. But an intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend his time with fools.

None of it was important now. The wind blew it out of his head.

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. 

If I do it you won't ever worry?' 'I won't worry about that because it's perfectly simple.' Then I'll do it. Because I don't care about me.

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.

You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I though, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had.

You may not believe this. No one believes this, but it is true.

It's funny,' I said. 'It's very funny. And it's a lot of fun, too, to be in love.' 'Do you think so?' her eyes looked flat again. 'I don't mean fun in that way. In a way it's an enjoyable feeling.' 'No,' she said. 'I think it's hell on earth.

So now do not worry, take what you have, and do your work and you will have a long life and a very merry one.

Heresy is the foe of countenance

Spanish girls make wonderful wives. I've never had one so I know.

There is a lot of time between now and the fall term. There is a lot of time between now and the day after tomorrow if you want to put it that way ...

The two waiters inside the cafe knew that theo ld man was a little drunk, and while he was a good client they knew that if he became too drunk he would leave without paying, so they kept watch on him. Last week he tried to commit suicide, one waiter said. Why? He was in despair. What about? Nothing. How do you know it was nothing. He has plenty of money.

We ate well and cheaply and we drank well and cheaply and we slept well and warm together and loved each other.

For one person who likes Spain there are a dozen who prefer books on her.

You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills who.

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.

There was so much to write. He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how the people were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would.

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 and judged by these standards, which I do not defend, the bullfight is very normal to me because I feel very fine while it is going on and have a feeling of life and death and mortality and immortality, and after it is over I feel very sad but also very fine.

You wouldn't believe it. It's like a wonderful nightmare.

Creation's probably overrated. After all, God made the world in only six days and rested on the seventh.

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.

Los buenos libros se parecen en que son más ciertos que si hubiesen sucedido de verdad y en que, cuando terminas de leerlos, sientes que todo te sucedió y después, que todo te pertenece: lo bueno y lo malo, el éxtasis, el remordimiento y el dolor, la gente y los lugares y cómo estaba el tiempo.

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want him for long He maketh me to lie down in green pastures and there are no green pastures He leadeth me beside still waters and still waters run deep