“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
And
“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
And
“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.”
And
“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.”
And
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it — don’t cheat with it.”
And
“The world breaks everyone 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 Farewell to Arms
And
“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.” For Whom the Bell Tolls
And
“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.” For Whom the Bell Tolls
And
“Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” The Old Man and the Sea
And
“Write me at the Hotel Quintana, Pamplona, Spain. Or don’t you like to write letters. I do because it’s such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you’ve done something” Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, July 1, 1925
And
“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.” About his book, The Sun Also Rises in a letter, August 21, 1926
And
“Grace under pressure.”
And
“I’ve been in love (truly) with five women, the Spanish Republic and the 4th Infantry Division.” Letter to Marlene Dietrich, July 1, 1930
And
“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn… American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”
And
“However you make your living is where your talent lies.”
And
“Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.” On Ezra Pound, as quoted in The New Republic, November 11, 1936
And
“All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”
And
“There’s no one thing that’s true. It’s all true.”
And
“Never confuse movement with action.”
And
“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.”
And
“Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.”
And
“The individual, the great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.” Death in the Afternoon
And
“There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.” Death in the Afternoon
And
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
And
“The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.”
And
“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.” For Whom the Bell Tolls
Wikipedia: Ernest Hemingway
