This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
The war was a long way away. Maybe there wasn't any war. There was no war here. Then I realized it was over for me. But I did not have the feeling that it was really over. I had the feeling of a boy who thinks of what is happening at a certain hour at the schoolhouse from which he has played truant.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
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, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
The dead do not need to rise. They are a part of the earth now and the earth can never be conquered. For the earth endureth forever. It will outlive all systems of tyranny. Those who have entered it honorably, and no men ever entered earth more honorably than those who died in Spain, already have achieved immortality.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
It is the fault of the orders, which are too rigid. There is no allowance for a change in circumstance.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
Look very small those obstacles which seemed a very big day.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
That every day should be a fiesta seemed to me a marvelous discovery.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
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.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
The parody is the last refuge of the frustrated writer. Parodies are what you write when you are associate editor of the Harvard Lampoon. The greater the work of literature, the easier the parody. The step up from writing parodies is writing on the wall above the urinal.
Dirty | Distrust | Hope | Man | Murder | War | Will | Murder |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
Vice is a wonderful thing, Catherine said. The people who go in for it seem to have good taste about it.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
I've seen a lot of patriots and they all died just like anybody else if it hurt bad enough and once they were dead their patriotism was only good for legends; it was bad for their prose and made them write bad poetry. If you are going to be a great patriot, i.e., loyal to any existing order of government (not one who wishes to destroy the existing for something better), you want to be killed early if your life and works won't stink.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
No one should be alone in their old age, he thought.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see whether you believed it or not. On the question you raised, the effects of wounds vary greatly. Simple wounds which do not break bone are of little account. They sometimes give confidence. Wounds which do extensive bone and nerve damage are not good for writers, nor anybody else.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one'... (The man who first said that) was probably a coward... He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he's intelligent. He simply doesn't mention them.
Man |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
That seemed to handle it. That was it. Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love. That was it all right. I went in to lunch.
Better | Courage | Good | Kill | Light | Loneliness | Love | Man | People | Time | Will | Wishes | World | Afraid |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.
Books | Boys | Government | Hope | Man | Politics | Will | Government |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
When you have a child, the world has a hostage.
Ability | Character | Dignity | Enough | Experience | Good | Heart | Intelligence | Knowledge | Life | Life | Little | Luck | Man | Men | People | Price | Science | Time | Will | Work | Writing | Luck | Learn | Old | Understand |
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
I wonder what your idea of heaven would be — A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists. All powerful and members of the best families all drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists unable to obtain booze or with chronic stomach disorders that they called secret sorrows.
Ernest Hemingway, fully Ernest Miller Hemingway
Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know.