"The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it."
ER
Ernest Hemingway
51 quotes
Quotes by Ernest Hemingway
"It's harder to write in the third person but the advantage is you move around better."
"Remember to get the weather in your damn book--weather is very important."
"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."
"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."
"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"
"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
"The first draft of anything is shit."
"What difference does it make if you live in a picturesque little outhouse surrounded by 300 feeble minded goats and your faithful dog? The question is: Can you write?"
"My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way."
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
"People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars."
"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."
"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."
"it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply."
"Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."
"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."
"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
"The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it."