Ernest Hemingway Quotes

Powerful Ernest Hemingway for Daily Growth

About Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway, born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, was an influential American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and Nobel laureate. Known for his concise, economical, and understated writing style, Hemingway developed a distinct narrative voice that has significantly impacted modern American literature. Raised in a comfortable Midwestern family, his early life was marked by an idyllic childhood, but it was the death of his father when he was just 14 years old that profoundly affected him. This experience fostered in Hemingway a lifelong preoccupation with mortality and loss. Following high school graduation in 1917, Hemingway worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star before joining the Red Cross ambulance service on the Italian front during World War I. His experiences there would later inform his first novel, "The Sun Also Rises" (1926), which explores themes of disillusionment and moral decay following the Great War. Hemingway's literary career flourished in the 1920s, often traveling between Paris, his home in Key West, and Africa, where he pursued big-game hunting and drew inspiration for his works. Some of his most celebrated short stories, including "The Old Man and the Sea," were penned during this period. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his mastery of the art of narrative, profound insight into the human condition, and wide-ranging impact on contemporary literature. However, personal tragedies and struggles with alcoholism marred the latter part of his life. Ernest Hemingway took his own life in 1961 at the age of 61. Today, Ernest Hemingway is remembered as one of America's most revered authors, whose powerful works continue to captivate readers worldwide and influence generations of writers. Famous quotes like "The world is a game which is played three times: once for children, then again for love, and the third time for art," encapsulate the depth and wisdom found in his extraordinary body of work.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"There is no greater sorrow than to recall the joy in Icarus's flight, remembering the places he had gone."

This quote by Ernest Hemingway captures the bittersweet poignancy of human existence. The story of Icarus, a mythological figure who flew too close to the sun with wax wings, is often used as a metaphor for ambition and its potential consequences. In this context, Hemingway's words suggest that the deepest regret lies not in the fall of Icarus (representing failure), but in the remembrance of the joy and exploration he experienced along his journey (the places he went). It is a poignant reminder that it's not just the destination, but also the journey itself – filled with discovery, freedom, and joy – that makes life worth living.

"The world is a little less innocent for each of us who leaves it."

Ernest Hemingway's quote emphasizes the impact that individuals have on the world during their lifetimes. Each person brings innocence, fresh perspectives, and uniqueness to society. As we depart from this world, our absence leaves a void and subtly changes the collective innocence of humanity, as it becomes less untouched and more experienced with each passing life. It highlights that every person who leaves makes a difference, even if they may not realize it while living their lives.

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."

This quote emphasizes the value of questioning over simply acquiring information or answers. It suggests that, while having answers can provide immediate solutions, the ability to ask meaningful questions demonstrates a deeper understanding and a more significant form of wisdom. By asking questions, we stimulate our minds, foster critical thinking, and encourage curiosity and exploration, ultimately leading to personal growth and broader perspectives. Therefore, it's better to know some thought-provoking or insightful questions than to have all the answers, as this promotes a more enriching learning experience.

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."

This quote by Ernest Hemingway underscores the idea that learning and personal growth are lifelong processes, implying that even those we perceive as experts or masters still have much to learn. It encourages humility, curiosity, and an openness to continuous development in any field, reminding us all to maintain a beginner's mindset as we navigate through life.

"If you want to know how to live, what to do, and how to wage war, learn from one who has been there before."

This quote by Ernest Hemingway emphasizes the importance of learning from experience and wisdom gained through practical knowledge. In essence, he suggests that if one wishes to understand life, make informed decisions, and navigate challenges effectively - particularly in critical situations such as waging war - they should seek guidance from those who have previously faced and overcome similar circumstances. This quote is a call to learn from the past, gain insight, and apply lessons learned to our own lives to ensure we are better equipped to face our own trials and triumphs.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

- Ernest Hemingway

Trust, Best, Find, Best Way

I rewrote the ending to 'Farewell to Arms,' the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

- Ernest Hemingway

Last, Before, Times, Ending

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

- Ernest Hemingway

Weapon, Just One, Ever, Impose

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

- Ernest Hemingway

War, Never, Nor, Justified

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

- Ernest Hemingway

Doing, Thing, Shortest, Answer

Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.

- Ernest Hemingway

Small, Country, Over, Brown

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

- Ernest Hemingway

Temporary, Nation, Refuge, Panacea

From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.

- Ernest Hemingway

Alive, Through, Immortality, Happened

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Hope, Book, Next, Profanity

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 the other.

- Ernest Hemingway

Lucky, Other, May, Good Parts

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

- Ernest Hemingway

Writing, Nothing, Typewriter, Bleed

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

- Ernest Hemingway

Nothing, Nobility, Being, Former

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Rest, Lucky, Young, Feast

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

- Ernest Hemingway

Start, Innocence, Things, Wicked

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

- Ernest Hemingway

Sometimes, Like, Perfectly, Blasting

I always rewrite each day up to the point where I stopped. When it is all finished, naturally you go over it. You get another chance to correct and rewrite when someone else types it, and you see it clean in type. The last chance is in the proofs. You're grateful for these different chances.

- Ernest Hemingway

Over It, Another, Correct, Chances

I never had to choose a subject - my subject rather chose me.

- Ernest Hemingway

Never, Rather, Subject, Chose

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

- Ernest Hemingway

Rather, Them, Which, Altering

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

- Ernest Hemingway

Die, Reason, Country, Modern War

In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.

- Ernest Hemingway

War, Die, Reason, Modern War

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.

- Ernest Hemingway

Book, American, Literature, One Book

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Fishing, Bad, Over, Shoulder

'For Whom the Bell Tolls' was a problem which I carried on each day. I knew what was going to happen in principle. But I invented what happened each day I wrote.

- Ernest Hemingway

Happen, Which, Carried, Bell

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.

- Ernest Hemingway

Abuse, Which, Decadence, Differ

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.

- Ernest Hemingway

Learning, Listening, Deal, Great Deal

The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.

- Ernest Hemingway

Sports, Game, Deal, Great Deal

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Enough, May, About, Iceberg

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.

- Ernest Hemingway

Over, Decoration, Prose, Baroque

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

- Ernest Hemingway

Intelligence, Drunk, His, Fools

Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear, and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses, he will endure or be forgotten.

- Ernest Hemingway

Sometimes, Will, May, Writes

I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.

- Ernest Hemingway

Ring, Going, Get, Tolstoy

After you finish a book, you know, you're dead. But no one knows you're dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

- Ernest Hemingway

Book, Dead, See, Irresponsibility

You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

- Ernest Hemingway

Wipe, Wiped, Opponents, Eligible

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Always, May, Confounded, Solemn

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

- Ernest Hemingway

Drunk, Always, Shut, Sober

Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.

- Ernest Hemingway

Doubt, About, Half, Half The Time

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.

- Ernest Hemingway

Other, Very, Abolition, Disputes

Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor.

- Ernest Hemingway

Art, Death, Which, Brilliance

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly. Whether they will be of use to him is conditioned by survival. Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer.

- Ernest Hemingway

Very, Use, Trained, Conditioned

Pound's crazy. All poets are. They have to be. You don't put a poet like Pound in the loony bin.

- Ernest Hemingway

Like, Loony, Bin, Pound

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.

- Ernest Hemingway

Love, Travel, Never, Trips

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

- Ernest Hemingway

Luck, Been, Tries, Attainment

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Natural, More, Made, Understood

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

- Ernest Hemingway

Death, Enough, Stories, Teller

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Alcohol, Will, Idea, Flame

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

- Ernest Hemingway

Death, Wealth, Increases, Exact

All our words from loose using have lost their edge.

- Ernest Hemingway

Lost, Edge, Using, Loose

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

- Ernest Hemingway

Happiness, Know, Rarest

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?

- Ernest Hemingway

Love, Dreams, My Life, Apart

For a war to be just three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive.

- Ernest Hemingway

Authority, Necessary, Public, Motive

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

- Ernest Hemingway

Caricature, Characters, Novel

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

- Ernest Hemingway

Book, Cold, I Write, Disturb

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Love, Death, Other, Outlived

That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.

- Ernest Hemingway

Reward, Mood, Known, Terrible

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Work, Always, Reasons, Popular

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Been, About, Learned, Grass

Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?

- Ernest Hemingway

Old, Some, Anybody, Old Man

A writer of fiction is really... a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.

- Ernest Hemingway

Own, Other, Fiction, Liar

All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

- Ernest Hemingway

My Life, Though, Looked, All My Life

On the 'Star,' you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper work will not harm a young writer and could help him if he gets out of it in time.

- Ernest Hemingway

Newspaper, Young, Harm, Useful

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

- Ernest Hemingway

Love, Will, Certainly, Ruthless

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

- Ernest Hemingway

Heroes, Necessary, Get, Harder

I love to go to the zoo. But not on Sunday. I don't like to see the people making fun of the animals, when it should be the other way around.

- Ernest Hemingway

Love, Other, Making, Fun

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

- Ernest Hemingway

Mind, Like, Your, Standing Up

To be a successful father... there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years.

- Ernest Hemingway

Father, Kid, Rule, Successful

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

War, Like, Thereafter, Care

Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.

- Ernest Hemingway

Equal, Increases, Proportion, Risk

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Luck, Good Luck, Sometimes, Simply

Cowardice... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.

- Ernest Hemingway

Always, Suspend, Almost, Simply

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Another, Died, Distinguish, Details

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Birds, Last, Different Ways, Flying

All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.

- Ernest Hemingway

Good, One Thing, Had, Happened

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Always, Could, Very, Few

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

- Ernest Hemingway

Craft, Where, Ever, Master

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Bad, Feel, About, Morals

Courage is grace under pressure.

- Ernest Hemingway

Courage, Pressure, Grace

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you... Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

- Ernest Hemingway

Immortality, Badly, Wounded, Illusion

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Best, Will, Happen, Supposed

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

- Ernest Hemingway

Aim, Feel, Simplest, Paper

I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast - talk them or write them down.

- Ernest Hemingway

Mind, Making, Sentences, Write

A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

- Ernest Hemingway

Punishment, Lot, Take, Write

You see, I am 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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Alive, Bad, Putting, Depict

Never mistake motion for action.

- Ernest Hemingway

Mistake, Brainy, Never, Action

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

- Ernest Hemingway

Vice, Greatest Pleasure, Major

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

- Ernest Hemingway

Never, Talk, Most, Listen

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

- Ernest Hemingway

Failure, Defeat, Destroyed, Defeated

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

- Ernest Hemingway

War, Happen, One Thing, Won

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

- Ernest Hemingway

Book, Loyal, Friend

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

- Ernest Hemingway

Strength, Broken, Some, Places

I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.

- Ernest Hemingway

Think, Like, Though, Critics

What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

- Ernest Hemingway

Feel Good, Bad, Immoral, Moral

I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

- Ernest Hemingway

Feel Good, Bad, Immoral, Moral

Time is the least thing we have of.

- Ernest Hemingway

Time, Least, Thing

The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.

- Ernest Hemingway

World, Fine, Very, Leave

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.

- Ernest Hemingway

Communication, Always, Still, Fed

Man is not made for defeat.

- Ernest Hemingway

Failure, Man, Made, Defeat

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

- Ernest Hemingway

War, Wealth, Wars, Caused

I know now that there is no one thing that is true - it is all true.

- Ernest Hemingway

True, Know, Now, One Thing

There's no one thing that is true. They're all true.

- Ernest Hemingway

True, Thing, One Thing

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

- Ernest Hemingway

Business, Learn, Think, None

You're beautiful, like a May fly.

- Ernest Hemingway

Beauty, Fly, May, Beautiful

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