A popular and influential American author once said, “There is no friend as loyal as a book.” Ernest Hemingway had his unique way with words. The moment I came across this particular quote, I could not resist exploring more of Ernest Hemingway quotes. The more I read, the more I realized that Ernest Hemingway’s quotes reflect deeper meaning and significance. Moreover, Hemingway’s perspective on every aspect of life—be it love, writing, or death—is something everyone should read at least once in their lifetime.
Following are some of the best Ernest Hemingway quotes that will help you introspect deep into every segment of your life.
Ernest Hemingway quotes love
“I don’t want you to go away. I just said that. You go if you want to. But hurry right back. Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.”
“We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.”
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
“If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”
Ernest Hemingway quotes about death
“The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
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.
“Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.”
“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death.”
“A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists, all powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death.
For Hemingway, writing was not just his profession but his entire life. The following Ernest Hemingway quotes portray his earnest consideration of writing.
Ernest Hemingway quotes on writing
“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.”
“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.”
“That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best – make it all up – but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.”
“Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.”
“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”
“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”
“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.”
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
“Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can.”
“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now.”
“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”
“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.”
“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
To an aspiring writer: “You shouldn’t write if you can’t write.”
“My training was never to drink after dinner nor before I wrote nor while I was writing.”
Undoubtedly, Hemingway is one of the greatest writers of all time. With that being said, the following are the best Ernest Hemingway quotes from some of his popular and widely acclaimed pieces of work.
Ernest Hemingway quotes from ‘A Farewell to arms’
“All thinking men are atheists.”
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
“I’m not brave anymore darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me.”
“But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”
“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
Ernest Hemingway quotes about water (The Old Man and the Sea)
“The important thing is to have good water in the well, and it is better to take a regular amount out than to pump the well dry and wait for it to refill.”
“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.”
“How lazily the sun goes down in Granada, it hides beneath the water, it conceals in the Alhambra!”
“Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing.”
“Keep your head clear and know how to suffer like a man. Or a fish.”
Ernest Hemingway quotes about the sea (The Old Man and the Sea)
“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
“Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too.”
“Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?”
“Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for.”
“Only I have no luck anymore. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
Ernest Hemingway quotes from ‘For whom the bell tolls’
“There are many who do not know they are Fascists, but will find it out when the time comes.”
“If we win here we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
“There’s no one thing that’s true. It’s all true.”
“If everyone 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?”
“No animal has more liberty than the cat, but it buries the mess it makes. The cat is the best anarchist.”
The above Ernest Hemingway quotes depict how huge a writer he was. His pieces of work are considered as bestsellers of all time. Moreover, his perception of life was not just profound but very comprehensive. The following Ernest Hemingway quotes will help you gain clarity of his great conscience.
Ernest Hemingway memorable quotes
“The way to make people trustworthy is to trust them.”
“When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen.”
“But man is not made for defeat… A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
“Courage is grace under pressure.”
“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
FAQ
- Who is Ernest Hemingway?
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style of writing had a profound influence on 20th-century fiction. He produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s.
- When did he win the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
- What are some of the popular works of Ernest Hemingway?
Throughout his career, Hemingway published 7 novels, 6 short story collections and 2 non-fiction works. His popular works are ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, ‘A Farewell to Arms’, ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, and ‘The Garden of Eden’.
- What was Hemingway’s famous line?
Hemingway once said, “There is no friend as loyal as a book,” and his words will remain with us to motivate and fuel our passion for many years to come.
