Inspirational Quotes
Words to motivate, inspire, and guide you.
Ernest Hemingway Quotes
LossLoveGriefMortality 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. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.
WritingCreativityExperienceStrugglePerspective The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.
WritingResponsibilityCompletionAftermath After you finish a book, you know, you're dead. But no one knows you're dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.
WritingTravelBody and MindWit Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.
HappinessPeopleInfluence 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.
AppreciationPerseveranceValue of Life The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.
WritingProcessChallengeInspiration 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.
WritingSeriousnessSolemnityIndividuality A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.
ResponsibilityIntegritySelf-control Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
WritingDisciplineSolitudeLoveInspiration You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.
PreferencePerceptionPotentialCriticism I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.
WritingEffortLuckImprovement 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.
LegacyClarityMasteryEndurance Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear, and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses, he will endure or be forgotten.
MoralityConscienceEthics 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.
AuthenticityExperienceStorytellingLife's Nuances 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.
TruthIntegrityResponsibilityAuthenticity There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.
RightnessWrongnessCertainty Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.
DecadenceCriticismMisunderstandingMorality Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.
TalentNatural AbilitySelf-awareness 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.
DepressionDoubtArtStruggle That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.
LearningEffortPerceptionDiscretion It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.
WisdomSubtletyDepthUnderstated Power 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.
ListeningLearningWisdom I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
WritingJournalismSkill DevelopmentExperience On the 'Star,' you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper work will not harm a young writer and could help him if he gets out of it in time.
WealthFearAnxietyAttachmentImpermanence Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.
TruthImaginationLiteratureWisdom All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.
LiteratureInfluenceFoundationRepresentationRace Relations All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.
TruthUnityOpen-MindednessUniversalityPhilosophy I know now that there is no one thing that is true - it is all true.
ImprovementOpportunityGratitudeCollaborationPerfectionism I always rewrite each day up to the point where I stopped. When it is all finished, naturally you go over it. You get another chance to correct and rewrite when someone else types it, and you see it clean in type. The last chance is in the proofs. You're grateful for these different chances.
SuccessUnderlying ReasonsUnintended ConsequencesReputation 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.
CreativityInitiativeInnovationHuman PotentialBelief That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.
MortalityIndividualityLegacyUniquenessPurpose 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.
IntelligenceHappinessPursuit Of HappinessSelf-awarenessFulfillment Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
AbolitionPeaceViolenceUselessnessGlobal Relations I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.
IntelligenceFoolsCompromiseAcceptance An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
TraditionRulesAuthenticityIntegrity The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.
AutonomyPrivacyTrustIntimacyPersonal Space Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.