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Ernest Hemingway’s Guide to Life, In 15 Quotes

By jennifer m wood | jul 21, 2018.

Though he made his living as a writer, Ernest Hemingway was just as famous for his lust for adventure. Whether he was running with the bulls in Pamplona, fishing for marlin in Bimini, throwing back rum cocktails in Havana, or hanging out with his six-toed cats in Key West, the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author never did anything halfway. And he used his adventures as fodder for the unparalleled collection of novels, short stories, and nonfiction books he left behind, The Sun Also Rises , A Farewell to Arms , Death in the Afternoon , For Whom the Bell Tolls , and The Old Man and the Sea among them.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING

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

"The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them."

"Never [go] on trips with anyone you do not love."

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE AND HAPPINESS

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

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

ON SUFFERING FOR YOUR ART

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

ON TAKING ACTION

"Never confuse movement with action."

ON GETTING WORDS OUT

"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."

ON THE BENEFITS OF SLEEP

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

ON THE TRUE NATURE OF WICKEDNESS

"All things truly wicked start from innocence."

ON WRITING WHAT YOU KNOW

"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."

ON THE PAINFULNESS OF BEING FUNNY

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

ON KEEPING PROMISES

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

ON GOOD VS. EVIL

"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."

ON REACHING FOR THE UNATTAINABLE

"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."

50 Adventurous Ernest Hemingway Quotes

Hey there, literary adventurers! Ever felt the urge to dive headfirst into the raw, rugged realm of Ernest Hemingway's masterful prose? Well, today's your lucky day! We've put together a carefully curated list of “50 Adventurous Ernest Hemingway Quotes” that are sure to ignite your inner passion for life and literature. Like Hemingway's own life – a thrilling tapestry of World War I ambulance driving, big-game hunting in Africa, bullfighting in Spain, and deep-sea fishing in the Caribbean – these quotes are drenched in a spirit of daring and discovery, waiting for you to dive in.

Did you know that Hemingway once won a bet in a Parisian bar by writing a compelling story in just six words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”? Quite the yarn for such a short sentence, right? Well, that's just Hemingway for you. His ability to encapsulate profound emotions and human experiences in the most succinct phrases was unparalleled, and you'll see that magic reflected in these “Ernest Hemingway Quotes”. Get ready to embark on a journey through the soul of one of the 20th century's most adventurous scribes. Fasten your seatbelts – it's going to be a wild ride!

1. “The only way to deal with life's adventures is to plunge into them with all your might.”

2. “It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”

3. “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”

4. “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.”

5. “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

6. “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

7. “Never confuse movement with action.”

8. “Courage is grace under pressure.”

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

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

Related Article: 50 Faithful C.S. Lewis Quotes

Embracing the Unknown

• “It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes, you are ready.”
• “I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy.”
• “The shortest answer is doing.”
• “The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice.”
• “Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
• “The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.”
• “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
• “The world is not a pleasant place to be without someone to hold and be held by.”
• “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.”
• “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”

Finding Freedom

• “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
• “It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”
• “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.”
• “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.”
• “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
• “I know now that there is no one thing that is true. It is all true.”
• “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.”
• “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”

Related Article: 50 Romantic Jane Austen Quotes

Embracing the Extraordinary

• “You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
• “Never confuse movement with action.”
• “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector.”
• “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.”
• “You make your own luck, Gig. You know what makes a good loser? Practice.”
• “Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can.”
• “All things truly wicked start from innocence.”
• “You're beautiful, like a May fly.”
• “I drink to make other people more interesting.”

Courage in the Face of Adversity

• “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
• “Never mistake motion for action.”
• “Every day above earth is a good day.”
• “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.”
• “Courage is grace under pressure.”
• “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

Ernest Hemingway's adventurous spirit and captivating prose continue to inspire readers and travelers alike. These 50 quotes reflect his courage, zest for life, and relentless pursuit of truth. Let his words remind you to embrace the unknown, find freedom, and face adversity with unwavering courage. As you embark on your own adventures, may these quotes be a beacon of inspiration and motivation to live life to the fullest.

Related Article: 50 Futuristic Isaac Asimov Quotes

50 Otherworldly Ray Bradbury Quotes

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Ernest Hemingway Quotes About Flight

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It is appearances, characteristics and performance that make a man love an airplane, and they, are what put emotion into one. You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn't any woman and there isn't any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane, and men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others. A man has only one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely plane he loses it to, there his heart will ever be.

The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea.

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.

It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.

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Ernest Hemingway

• Born: July 21, 1899
• Died: July 2, 1961
• Occupation: Author
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34 Ernest Hemingway quotes about travel, love, life, writing and more

Ernest Hemingway, born 1899, was an American journalist, novelist, writer, and traveller. 

His works are still widely read today.  Below are his best quotes which revolve around the subjects of travel, love, life, writing, war and much more. 

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Ernest Hemingway’s Top 10 Best Quotes 💬

Ernest Hemingway wrote some of the most memorable books in the history of American literature.

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

On this list, there are ten of the very best quotes from several of his wonderful novels and short stories. They represent his characteristically direct and minimal style while also conveying the depth of emotion that his characters experience.

Man and Nature

The fish is my friend too…I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars. Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought. The moon runs away. But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky; he thought

These lines come from ‘ The Old Man and the Sea’ and are some of the most commonly quoted .  They appear in the section of the novella in which the character Santiago is on the water. He is musing on the state of humanity and wondering about what role he has to play in the larger natural world. Specifically, he is quite interested in the relationship he has with the marlin. He is a friend to the fish, and the fish is a friend to him. But, Santiago knows he has to kill him.

Loneliness and Violence

But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. I know that 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. But with Catherine there was almost no difference in the night except that it was an even better time. If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.

This longer passage is one of the best from Hemingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms’. The lines feature in Chapter Thirty-Four. The scene depicts Henry and Catherine in bed together and the initial hope that Henry feels after their reunion. But, that soon changes. Henry’s mind moves away from their positive relationship and to a belief that the world is determined to destroy everything good about it. 

Sex and Relationships

For him it was a dark passage which led to nowhere, then to nowhere, then again to nowhere, once again to nowhere, always and forever to nowhere 

These famous lines come from Chapter Thirteen of ‘ For Whom the Bell Tolls ‘. They describe the relationship between Maria and Robert Jordan as they are on their way back from El Sordo. Their intimate relationship is described through the structure of these lines and Hemingway’s use of repetition. As the lines progress, Ernest Hemingway continues these techniques in order to depict each part of their climax and release. Readers should also consider what these lines, which have no real coherent order and structure relay on Robert’s state of mind in this passage. 

Would you please please please please please please please stop talking? 

This very interesting line comes from Hemingway’s ‘ Hills Like White Elephants ‘. In it, Jig, the girl, is talking to her American partner. Her eruption of repetition in this line is very striking. It shows the emotion that is at the root of their conversation, which is often hidden in Hemingway’s prose. She is really struggling and here a reader finally gets a look at it. 

It’s silly not to hope. It’s a sin he thought.

These two short sentences come from Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, ‘ The Old Man and the Sea ‘. In this quote, the main character Santiago is speaking. Throughout the novel , he expresses his belief in luck, hope, and the power of all living things. He realizes that he’ll be able to catch this enormous marlin he has hooked if he perseveres.

The Nature of War

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. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.

These lines come from one of Hemingway’s best books ‘ A Farewell to Arms ‘ and feature in Chapter Twenty-Seven. Here, Henry is meeting Gino who has a very different opinion about war than he does. Gino celebrates the idea of dying for one’s country and blues things like honor and glory. But, to Henry, these things do little to justify the actual outcomes of war. He cares more about the names of those who have died and the places that have been lost. 

All you have to do is write one true sentence

This wonderful line comes from Hemingway’s memoir, ‘ A Moveable Feast ‘. In it, he states very simply the one thing that he wanted to do with his life—write clearly and movingly without ornamentation or overwrought prose. Hemingway’s writing style is memorable and direct, so much so that there are often many layers of meaning in one line.

“Yes,” said the girl. “Everything tastes like licorice. Especially all the things you’ve waited so long for, like absinthe.” 

There is really no better example of Hemingway’s writing style than the short story ‘ Hills Like White Elephants ‘. This short quotation, as well as the one to follow, both come from the story. The girl asked the American to order absinthe, stating that she’d never tried it before, but when she drinks it she explains that it tastes like “licorice,” just like all the things that “you’ve waited so long for”. This is her attempt to navigate the conversation back to her pregnancy. 

Complex Relationships

Jake:“Couldn’t we live together, Brett? Couldn’t we just live together?” Brett: “I don’t think so. I’d just tromper you with everybody.”

These two lines come from Chapter Seven of ‘ The Sun Also Rises’ . Here, the two are speaking after Brett gets to Jack’s house in Paris. This is a perfect example of the way that Hemingway is able to write about something complex and multilayered with a few words. Jake desperately wants Brett to be with him but she replies that she would “tromper” him or cheat on him. This is something that gets at the heart of the novel and the wounds that Jake suffered in the war.

Life Changing Decisions

We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before.

These lines are spoken by the American in ‘ Hills Like White Elephants ‘. Here, he is alluding to the possible outcome if the girl decides to have an abortion. To him, it’s a simple choice, she has the operation and they can perhaps be “fine”. The word “fine” does not quite do justice to the situation though. It was not as simple of a procedure then as it is today plus the fact that it was illegal in Spain at the time makes the whole situation all the more complicated. 

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About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

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50 inspiring travel quotes

By Rebecca Males

Sometimes all it takes is the written word to lift your soul from the humdrum of everyday life. These are the wordsmiths that can take you by the hand and induce the most severe sense of wanderlust, taking you to the edge of the world - and back.

'Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.' Ernest Hemingway

'A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.' John A. Shedd

'A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.' Lao Tzu

'People don't take trips… trips take people.' John Steinbeck

'Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.' Lawrence Block

'Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.' Dalai Lama

' Paris is always a good idea.' Audrey Hepburn

'Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.' Jack Kerouac

'Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.' Henry David Thoreau

'Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.' Benjamin Disraeli

'Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.' Mohammed

'A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.' George Moore

'All that is gold does not glitter; just as not all those who wander are lost.' JRR Tolkien

'Travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer.' Author unknown

'I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.' Oscar Wilde

'If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people , you might better stay home.' James Michener

'It is better to travel well than to arrive.' Buddha

'Travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.' Thomas Fuller

'I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.' George Bernard Shaw

'All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.' Martin Buber

'Journeys end in lovers meeting.' William Shakespeare

'Great things are done when men and mountains meet.' William Blake

'If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.' Cesare Paves

'He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him.' Dutch Proverb

'The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.' Gilbert K. Chesterton

'Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.' Ralph Waldo Emerson

'This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England .' William Shakespeare

'There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.' Robert Louis Stevenson

'He who does not travel does not know the value of men.' Moorish proverb

'Curiosity is the one thing invincible in nature.' Freya Stark

'The most effective way to do it, is to do it.' Amelia Earhart

'No one realises how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.' Lin Yutang

'For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.' Robert Louis Stevenson

'One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.' Henry Miller

'A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.' Saadi Shirazi

'A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.' Tim Cahill

'As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf

'The Earth is what we all have in common.' Wendell Berry

'To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.' Aldous Huxley

'Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.' Paul Theroux

'The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.' Rudyard Kipling

'No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.' Lewis Carroll

'It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.' Ursula K. Le Guin

'Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.' William James

'A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.' John Steinbeck

'We hit the sunny beaches where we occupy ourselves keeping the sun off our skin, the saltwater off our bodies, and the sand out of our belongings.' Erma Bombeck

'Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.' Greg Anderson

'Adventures do occur, but not punctually.' E.M. Forster

'Vacation: a period of travel and relaxation when you take twice the clothes and half the money you need.' Author unknown

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Ernest Hemingway Quotes

We've all had the experience before. We read or hear that gem of a Hemingway quotation, quickly jot it down, only to call it up later, and realize we failed to note the source. Enter the Hemingway Quote Finder.

The Hemingway Quote Finder will locate the source of any Hemingway quotation whether it be from his published works, letters, articles or interviews. Only the source of the quotation will be e-mailed to you. You will not be sent the actual quotation . The Hemingway Quote Finder is a free service offered exclusively to visitors of Timeless Hemingway.

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Follow Ernest Hemingway’s Footsteps Through Havana

Sixty-five years after nabbing a Nobel, many of Papa Hemingway’s favorite haunts are still open to the public

Jennifer Billock

Travel Correspondent

When Ernest Hemingway penned his novel The Old Man and the Sea at his farm outside Havana, he likely had no idea the success it would receive, garnering him both a Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1953 and a Nobel Prize in literature in 1954.

When it was announced, 65 years ago on October 28, that he had won the Nobel, Hemingway thought other writers were better suited to the award. "As a Nobel Prize winner I cannot but regret that the award was never given to Mark Twain, nor to Henry James, speaking only of my own countrymen," he told the New York Times , just two hours after the official word from Stockholm . "Greater writers than these also did not receive the prize. I would have been happy—happier—today if the prize had gone to that beautiful writer Isak Dinesen, or to Bernard Berenson, who has devoted a lifetime to the most lucid and best writing on painting that has been produced, and I would have been most happy to know that the prize had been awarded to Carl Sandburg. Since I am not in a position to—no—since I respect and honor the decision of the Swedish Academy, I should not make any such observation. Anyone receiving an honor must receive it in humility."

The Old Man and the Sea tells the story of a Cuban fisherman ( supposedly inspired by a fisherman friend, Gregorio Fuentes , of Hemingway's and his own fishing trips) who caught a giant fish‚ only to have sharks eat the fish, leaving him with just a skeleton to bring home. Because he had such a connection with Cubans and the spirit of the country, Hemingway was considered a Cubano Sato , or garden variety Cuban, by residents. He became a regular at local establishments and even started a youth baseball team. Those close to him just called him Papa.

The writer first found his way to Cuba with his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, in April 1928. It was a simple layover in Havana en route from Paris to Key West, but the city captured his attention enough for him to return to the country multiple times and eventually purchase his own residence there in 1940 (this time with his third wife, Martha Gellhorn). His farm was built by Spanish architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer in 1886 and sits about 15 miles outside Havana, with a guesthouse and a view to downtown.

"I live in Cuba because I love Cuba—that does not mean a dislike for anyplace else," Hemingway once told Robert Manning at The Atlantic . "And because here I get privacy when I write."

Hemingway loved Cuba so much that he dedicated his Nobel Prize to the country, noting ( according to the Independent ) that “This is a prize that belongs in Cuba, because my work was conceived and created in Cuba, with my people of Cojimar where I’m a citizen.”

In 1960, about a year before his death, Hemingway left Cuba for good. But fans of the novelist today can still visit a handful of his favorite spots.

Finca Vigía

Hemingway and his third wife, Martha, bought this 1886 house in 1940 , after Martha discovered it in local ads the year before. The author lived here for 20 years, penning The Old Man and the Sea and finishing For Whom the Bell Tolls, among other works, from within its walls. He and his fourth wife, Mary Welsh (who moved in after Ernest and Martha divorced in 1945) abandoned the house in 1960, following Castro’s rise to power. The house is now owned by the Cuban government and operated as a museum. Everything has been meticulously preserved as it was when Hemingway left—bottles still sit on a serving tray, thousands of books still line the shelves and magazines are still spread out on the bed. It's all authentic to the day the author and his wife left. His fishing boat, Pilar , is preserved at the house as well, tucked inside a shelter on the property. It's likely that Hemingway's old fishing pal, Gregorio Fuentes, inspired the main character in The Old Man and the Sea —though Hemingway never said for sure. For preservation purposes, visitors are not actually allowed to enter the house but are invited to peer in through the doors and windows, which are always open (unless it’s raining).

Hotel Ambos Mundos

Before moving into Finca Vigía, Hemingway lived mostly at the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Old Havana, a salmon-colored building with 52 rooms. Hemingway stayed on the 5th floor, in room 511, which has now been transformed into a permanent museum dedicated to the author’s time there. While he lived in the hotel from 1932 until 1939, he began working on For Whom the Bell Tolls . He preferred room 511 specifically because he could see both Old Havana and the harbor, from where he often took his boat out fishing. In the lobby, guests will find framed photos of the author, and in his former room, several of his belongings—including a typewriter, glasses and a writing desk. Although room 511 is a museum now, guests can still rent rooms on the same floor to share the view Hemingway loved. (Or at least part of it; the author's room was on a corner.)

Floridita Bar

Hemingway can still be seen leaning one elbow at the bar in the Floridita , a restaurant and pub he frequented—though, this Hemingway is a life-size bronze statue. The author frequently walked the ten minutes from Hotel Ambos Mundos to Floridita, so he could enjoy a drink—often his beloved daiquiri—made by the " Cocktail King of Cuba ," bartender Constantino Ribalaigua Vert. Constante (as the locals called him) died in 1952, but not before making a certain daiquiri famous at the Floridita: the Papa Doble, or the Hemingway Daiquiri, made with less sugar and more rum as Hemingway preferred it.

La Bodeguita del Medio

Rumored to be the birthplace of the mojito, La Bodeguita actually began its life as a small grocery store and corner shop. In 1942, the new owner started serving meals to friends and family, and by 1949, had turned the shop into a restaurant. Celebrities galore have come to La Bodeguita—Hemingway, Nat King Cole and Brigitte Bardot—and even Fidel Castro. Nearly all have signed the walls, which are covered in a cacophony of greetings and scrawls paying tribute to the bar. Hemingway supposedly left his own mark on one of the walls there as well; a framed reproduction (or an authentic signature, or a complete forgery , depending on who you ask) of his scribble proclaims “My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita” from its place hanging behind the bar.

This open-air cabaret has drawn the high-class jet-setting crowd for nearly 80 years, hitting its high point in the 1950s when guests included notables like Hemingway, Marlon Brando and John F. Kennedy. To this day, every show is stuffed full of showgirls in feathers and sequins, dancing and singing. It's an all-out party in the crowd, as people take to the aisles to dance alongside other revelers. Guests can toast to Hemingway’s legacy as a frequent visitor to the shows at the Tropicana ; included in the ticket price is a cigar for the men, a flower for the women, and a bottle of rum for four people to share.

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Jennifer Billock | | READ MORE

Jennifer Billock is an award-winning writer, bestselling author, and editor. She is currently dreaming of an around-the-world trip with her Boston terrier. Check out her website at jenniferbillock.com .

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Tracing the Literary Travels of Ernest Hemingway

An exhaustive traveller, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is revered as one of the iconic writers of American fiction, noted for his understated prose and evocative portrayals of South American and European locales.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899 to a physician father and musician mother, Hemingway began his career at seventeen, working as a journalist. He soon enlisted as a volunteer in the First World War, but was rejected by the Infantry Service, instead joining the Red Cross Medical Service on the Italian Front where he was badly injured. Following the war he embarked on a brief career as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, before returning home to the United States to focus on writing. Newly married, Hemingway would go on to settle in Paris, where he would be acquainted with the modernist American writers Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, who were also living in Europe.

A period of creativity followed with Hemingway submitting eighty-eight short stories, and various travel pieces to the Toronto Star . He released his first collection Three Storie s and Ten Poems in 1923, followed by In Our Time (1925) , a collection of short story vignettes. He moved back to the United States in 1926, where he produced his first major novelistic triumph, The Sun Also Rises (1926), about a group of expatriate American and English expatriates traveling from Paris to Spain. Often autobiographical, Hemingway’s overseas travels informed much of his work, spanning the globe from his early literary sojourns in France to African Safaris, the Spanish Civil War, and excursions in Cuba and the Caribbean.

A classic piece of travelogue fiction, Green Hills of Africa (1935) is an elegantly written, lyrical depiction of the African landscape, wilderness and culture. His second work of nonfiction was inspired by Hemingway’s visit to Safari country in East Africa, the region was also a source of inspiration for short stories such as ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ and ‘The Shot Happy Life of Francis Macomber’. A suspenseful read, this non-fiction novel also features Hemingway’s meditations on writing.

Cuba was also a pivotal setting for much of his writing with Hemingway first visiting the island in the 1920s. His novella about aging, death and the human spirit, The Old Man and the Sea (1952) was one of the last major works written during his lifetime, and won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953. The story, about an old fisherman’s lonely struggle out at sea was inspired by Cuban fisherman Gregorio Fuentes, who met Hemingway in 1928 while the author was living in Cuba.

In the posthumously published memoirs A Moveable Feast (1961) Hemingway gives us a vivid description of his early years spent in 1920’s Paris as part of an expatriate group of writers and artists which included Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce. A portrait of the artist as a young man, these witty, lively sketches covers the period between 1921 and 1926, and are considered one of the definitive depictions of old Paris. The title comes from Hemingway’s oft-quoted remark that ‘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.’ The quote appears as the book’s epitaph. By Erdinch Yigitce

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The Quotes Archive

100+ Captivating Ernest Hemingway Quotes: Timeless Wisdom Unveiled

Ernest Hemingway, a literary giant of the 20th century, is renowned not only for his impactful prose but also for his profound insights into life and human nature. His timeless words have left an indelible mark on literature, and his quotes continue to resonate with readers around the world. In this exploration of Ernest Hemingway’s best and thought-provoking quotes, we delve into the profound wisdom that the Nobel Prize-winning author imparted through his succinct and powerful expressions.

Hemingway’s ability to distill complex emotions and existential truths into concise phrases is nothing short of remarkable. His inspirational quotes have the uncanny ability to stir the soul, offering profound reflections on courage, love, loss, and the human experience. Whether reflecting on the battlefield, the bullring, or the serene landscapes of life, Hemingway’s words possess a universality that transcends time and place.

Among the best quotes by Ernest Hemingway, one finds a treasure trove of literary gems that inspire, challenge, and provoke thought. From his reflections on the nature of bravery in the face of adversity to his musings on the complexities of love and relationships, Hemingway’s quotes are a testament to the depth of his understanding of the human condition.

This journey into the world of Ernest Hemingway’s quotes invites readers to explore the rich tapestry of his thoughts, to ponder the nuances of his prose, and to discover the enduring relevance of his words. As we embark on this exploration, we will uncover the threads of wisdom that weave through his narratives, shedding light on the essence of what it means to truly live.

In the pages that follow, let us navigate the labyrinth of Hemingway’s mind, where every quote serves as a compass guiding us through the intricacies of life’s complexities. Prepare to be inspired, provoked, and enlightened as we unravel the layers of meaning within the best and thought-provoking quotes by Ernest Hemingway.

• “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
• “Courage is grace under pressure.”
• “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.”
• “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
• “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
• “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.”
• “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
• “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
• “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
• “The first draft of anything is shit.”
• “But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”
• “The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
• “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
• “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
• “I drink to make other people more interesting.”
• “I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
• “I love you and I always will and I am sorry. What I done makes me look almost as though I never loved you and that’s not true.”
• “Never confuse movement with action.”
• “All good books have one thing in common – they are truer than if they had really happened.”
• “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
• “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
• “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.”
• “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
• “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.”
• “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
• “A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.”
• “Every day above earth is a good day.”
• “The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
• “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
• “The only way to do all the things you’d like to do is to read.”
• “Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
• “All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”
• “The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.”
• “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
• “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector.”
• “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
• “I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.”
• “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

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100+ Ernest Hemingway Quotes That Can Transform Your Life Perspective

Yiannis Kalliantas Quotes authors , Nobel prize winners , quotes by a single personality

Born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway was an American novelist and journalist noted for his adventurous life. An amateur boxer and skilled sailor, with a passion for deep sea fishing and big game hunting, he was the embodiment of manliness, something that is also reflected in his unpretentious and simple writing style. Considered as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, many of his works are celebrated as classics of American literature and several of them were made into movies. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his masterpiece “The Old Man and the Sea” and was also awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature .

With an unparalleled zest for life, Hemingway was a born explorer and adventure seeker. From his enlistment as a volunteer in the Italian Front during WWI, to war correspondent across WWII Europe and surveying alone the Florida coast for German U boats, he was a larger than life character who travelled extensively seeking challenges at every opportunity, surviving plane crashes and all kinds of illnesses. Hemingway was the manifestation of the archetypal male, the hunter, the protector and provider. His concrete narrative, a unique amalgam of masculinity and sensitivity, is based on his own life experiences and convey his exact emotions to his readers. In later life he settled in Ketchum, Idaho where he got hospitalized for depression and a few days after he committed suicide with a shotgun. Here you will find the most inspirational quotes of this iconic alpha male to share with loved ones in order to motivate and embolden them but also to reflect upon and let these nuggets of wisdom transform your perspective of life for the better.

Table of Contents

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• Courage is grace under pressure. Ernest Hemingway
• I drink to make other people more interesting. Ernest Hemingway
• There is no friend as loyal as a book. Ernest Hemingway
• For what are we born if not to aid one another? Ernest Hemingway
• The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for. Ernest Hemingway
• How little we know of what there is to know. Ernest Hemingway
• First you borrow, then you beg. Ernest Hemingway
• Write hard and clear about what hurts. Ernest Hemingway
• The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. Ernest Hemingway
• However you make your living is where your talent lies. Ernest Hemingway
• Think of what you can do with that there is. Ernest Hemingway
• All our words from loose using have lost their edge. Ernest Hemingway
• Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. Ernest Hemingway
• Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once. Ernest Hemingway
• Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend. Ernest Hemingway
• All thinking men are atheists. Ernest Hemingway
• Never confuse movement with action. Ernest Hemingway
• Everyone behaves badly–given the chance. Ernest Hemingway
• There isn’t always an explanation for everything. Ernest Hemingway
• You must be prepared to work always without applause. Ernest Hemingway
• As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand. Ernest Hemingway
• Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. Ernest Hemingway
• I belong to this notebook and this pencil. Ernest Hemingway
• All remembrance of things past is fiction. Ernest Hemingway
• Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so. Ernest Hemingway
• -How did you go bankrupt?-Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly. Ernest Hemingway
• We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. Ernest Hemingway
• I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. Ernest Hemingway
• We are all broken—that’s how the light gets in. Ernest Hemingway
• Remember that he who conquers himself is greater than the one who conquers a city. Ernest Hemingway
• Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you. Ernest Hemingway
• I want you so much I want to be you too. Ernest Hemingway
• No one you love is ever truly lost. Ernest Hemingway
• Fall for them, but don’t let them ruin you. Ernest Hemingway
• All cowardice comes from not truly loving, or at least, not loving well. Ernest Hemingway
• I’ll tell every one in the world that you are the only one that matters. Ernest Hemingway
• I wish I had died before I ever loved anyone but her. Ernest Hemingway
• When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve. Ernest Hemingway
• You never understand anybody that loves you. Ernest Hemingway
• When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me. Ernest Hemingway
• Love is a dunghill, and I’m the cock that gets on it to crow. Ernest Hemingway
• I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there’s a lot of difference. Ernest Hemingway
• I’m with you. No matter what else you have in your head I’m with you and I love you. Ernest Hemingway
• If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it. Ernest Hemingway
• If my Valentine you won’t be,I’ll hang myself on your Christmas tree. Ernest Hemingway
• You know I don’t love anyone but you. You shouldn’t mind because someone else loved me. Ernest Hemingway
• The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Ernest Hemingway
• All you get in this life is a point of view. Ernest Hemingway
• Love yourself . Dare to dream. Live on purpose! Ernest Hemingway
• Any man’s life, told truly, is a novel… Ernest Hemingway
• When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead. Ernest Hemingway
• In order to write about life first you must live it. Ernest Hemingway
• When you start to live outside yourself, it’s all dangerous. Ernest Hemingway
• As you get older, it’s more difficult to have heroes, but it’s just as necessary. Ernest Hemingway
• The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without. Ernest Hemingway
• We have to get used to the idea that at the most important crossroads in our life there are no signs. Ernest Hemingway
• Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual. Ernest Hemingway
• Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Ernest Hemingway
• But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose. Ernest Hemingway
• Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day? Ernest Hemingway
• I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know? Ernest Hemingway
• I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it. Ernest Hemingway
• 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
• The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over. Ernest Hemingway
• Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways men can be immortal. Ernest Hemingway
• The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. Ernest Hemingway
• The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it. Ernest Hemingway
• There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. Ernest Hemingway
• But man is not made for defeat… A man can be destroyed but not defeated. Ernest Hemingway
• When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Ernest Hemingway
• It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready. Ernest Hemingway
• All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. Ernest Hemingway
• Too much honor destroys a man quicker than too much of any other fine quality. Ernest Hemingway
• Never think that war, no matter how necessary nor how justified, is not a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead. Ernest Hemingway
• There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. Ernest Hemingway
• If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything. Ernest Hemingway
• Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail. Ernest Hemingway
• An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools. Ernest Hemingway
• There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games. Ernest Hemingway
• The one who is doing his work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one the poverty is hard on. Ernest Hemingway
• There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes. Ernest Hemingway
• You ought to dream . All our biggest businessmen have been dreamers. Ernest Hemingway
• Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut. Ernest Hemingway
• No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful. Ernest Hemingway
• No animal has more liberty than the cat, but it buries the mess it makes. The cat is the best anarchist. Ernest Hemingway
• Creation’s probably overrated. After all, God made the world in only six days and rested on the seventh. Ernest Hemingway
• If you had stars inside your brain cells, you’d probably understand what I am talking about. Ernest Hemingway
• 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. Ernest Hemingway
• The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. Ernest Hemingway
• You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. Ernest Hemingway
• Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love. Ernest Hemingway
• It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end. Ernest Hemingway
• The best sky was in Italy or Spain and in Northern Michigan in the fall. Ernest Hemingway
• There are the two curses of Spain, the bulls and the priests. Ernest Hemingway
• It was always pleasant crossing bridges in Paris. Ernest Hemingway
• When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely. Ernest Hemingway
• For all of us who lived in Paris; we will never forget it because Paris is a moveable feast. Ernest Hemingway
• In a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you. Ernest Hemingway
• How lazily the sun goes down in Granada, it hides beneath the water, it conceals in the Alhambra! Ernest Hemingway
• The melon of Castile is for self-abuse. The melon of Valencia for eating. Ernest Hemingway
• In every port in the world, at least two Estonians can be found. Ernest Hemingway
• For one person who likes Spain there are a dozen who prefer books on her. Ernest Hemingway
• Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up. Ernest Hemingway

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‘Generous and reflective’: letters show other sides to macho Ernest Hemingway

In the mid-1930s, the novelist, then a controversial war correspondent, encouraged aspiring writers with frankness and humour

H e cultivated a hard-drinking macho image, with a taste for big-game hunting and a love of bullfighting, but Ernest Hemingway had a generous and thoughtful side that is revealed in previously unpublished letters.

In the decade after he made his name with A Farewell to Arms , his 1929 war novel, his correspondence shows that he repeatedly offered advice and encouragement – as well as insights into his own craft – to aspiring young novelists.

In a letter from 1934, he wrote: “The real secret in writing a novel is to keep inside of your action all the time like a horse. Don’t let the damned horse run away on you when you are going to have to keep racing him forever. And always stop at an interesting place when you still know what is going to happen.

“Then you can go on from there the next day and the next and etc. Never write yourself out in those bursts. It is just like making a 300-mile race a succession of runaways. Do a certain amount every day or every two days and always stop where it is interesting and while you are going good.”

While praising achievements, he was also brutally honest in his criticism: “I suppose you’d rather have me be perfectly frank so will be – You can’t write a novel that way.”

The letter’s recipient was Arnold Gingrich, who wanted to become a published novelist. He was then a young, up-and-coming editor who had launched Esquire magazine in 1933, with Hemingway contributing features on his hunting and fishing adventures.

In 1936, Hemingway also wrote to an unknown budding writer, Joseph Hopkins, telling him: “Listen. If you die you’re dead. And if you can write some more good stories you’ll never die. You have enough talent for me to fool around trying to get you published.”

He recommended one of Hopkins’s stories to Gingrich, who published it.

The correspondence will appear in the forthcoming book, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway : Volume 6 , edited by Sandra Spanier, Verna Kale and Miriam B Mandel, and published by Cambridge University Press.

The latest of 17 planned volumes, it spans 1934 to 1936, with 366 letters to 116 recipients. They cover everything from his experimental nonfiction book Green Hills of Africa to his big-game fishing.

Spanier, professor of English at Penn State University, said of his letters to aspiring writers: “Hemingway’s swaggering, cantankerous persona is well known. This is a more generous and reflective side of him. He took writing very seriously.

“Gingrich was his most frequent correspondent in this period. The letters show that Hemingway is reflective and wise, offering ideas about what’s going to be useful to a writer. These are really great letters. They show a fresh side of Hemingway for people who have stereotypical views of him which he sort of perpetuated himself.”

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When Gingrich’s book – Cast Down the Laurel – was finally published, Hemingway wrote to him in 1935 about the “marvellous press” it had received: “There is no doubt but what you are a big shot now and of Literary Importance. How does it feel? But for Christ sake don’t let the reviews mean a god-damned thing to you or it will take you from two years to always to get over it. The book is exactly the same as it was when you finished it and it is from there that you have to go on writing … You are an intelligent guy Arnold with a lot of talent.”

Spanier said that while Hemingway is not widely recognised for his sense of humour, the letters show that he could be “very funny”. “Hemingway had become passionate about fishing for giant marlin and tuna, and spent much of the period in the waters between Key West, Cuba and Bimini, in the Bahamas, fishing aboard his beloved new boat, Pilar.” In a 1935 letter to his old friend and fellow fisherman, the American painter Henry Strater , he ridiculed the idea of appropriate attire for a fishing expedition just because Bimini then attracted the wealthy fishing and yachting set.

He wrote: “Don’t know what we will need good clothes for. Whites are good enough to call on anybody. No reason why anybody should snoot us …

“We’re going for a holiday and to catch fish and no need to be dressed up. Much smarter (vogue sense of the word smart) not to be. I don’t know anybody in Bimini. Other anglers no matter how millioned more interested in what you catch than in what you wear. I’ll shave for anything over 500 pounds; but not for anything under.”

• Ernest Hemingway
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