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Ernest Hemingway Quotes and Quotations
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to you and after which it all belongs to you. You lose it if you talk about it. The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over. Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Nobody knows what's in him until he tries to pull it out. If there's nothing, or very little, the shock can kill a man. 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 movable feast. The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it. The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it. His (the writer's) standard of fidelity to the truth should be so high that his invention, out of his experience, should produce a truer account than anything factual can be. I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary. Cowardice ... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Courage is grace under pressure. As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come. Never mistake motion for action. The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last in it, and not be smashed by it. I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes. |