You lose it if you talk about it.

— Ernest Hemingway

You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his.

— Ernest Hemingway

You never kill anyone you want to kill in a war, he said to himself.

— Ernest Hemingway

You ought to be ironical the minute you get out of bed. You ought to wake up with your mouth full of pity.

— Ernest Hemingway

You're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. Furthermore, you get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with sex. Furthermore, you spend all your time talking, not working. Furthermore, you are an expatriate, see? Furthermore, you hang around cafés.

— Ernest Hemingway

You're beautiful, like a May fly.

— Ernest Hemingway

You’re beautiful. You walk wonderfully and if I were here and saw you now for the first time I’d be in love with you. If I saw you for the first time everything would turn over inside of me, and I’d ache right through my chest.

— Ernest Hemingway

You're going to have things to repent, boy,' Mr. John had told Nick. 'That's one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is to have them.

— Ernest Hemingway

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

You wouldn't believe it. It's like a wonderful nightmare."" Sure," I said. "I'd believe anything. Including nightmares." "What's the matter? Feel low?"" Low as hell.

— Ernest Hemingway