Ernest Hemingway Thinking Quotations

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

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.

Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you quit, try.

If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care.

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.

He rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure.

I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it.

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).

Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe.

Isn't it pretty to think so.

I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking and doing something or seeing people doing something that they understood.

I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.

The fools think I am writing algebra but what I am really writing is geometry.

My working habits are simple: long periods of thinking, short periods of writing.

What I learned constructive about women is that no matter how old they get, always think of them the way they were on the best day they ever had.

I kept this to remind me of you trying to brush away the Villa Rossa from your teeth in the morning, swearing and eating aspirin and cursing harlots. Every time I see that glass I think of you trying to clean your conscience with a toothbrush.

Oh Jake," Brett said, "We could have had such a damned good time together." Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me. Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?

Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.

It is very bad for (an artist) to talk about how he (creates). It is not the (artist's) province to explain or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work. It's none of their business that you had to learn. Let them think you were born that way.

It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta.

Some people, when they hear an echo, think they originated the sound.

You're going to write straight and simple and good now. That's the start.''What if I'm not straight and simple and good? Do you think I can write that way?''Write how you are but make it straight.

I started out very quiet and I beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr. de Maupassant. I've fought two draws with Mr. Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody's going to get me in any ring with Mr. Tolstoy unless I'm crazy or I keep getting better.

Let’s not talk about how I am. It’s a subject I know too much about to want to think about anymore.

But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.

But I think the Great DiMaggio would be proud of me today.

Have faith in the Yankees my son. Think of the great DiMaggio.

Now I am depressed myself,' I said. 'That's why I never think about these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.

Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it.

I think you should learn about writing from everybody who has ever written that has anything to teach you

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.

I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man. Under the black hat, when I had first seen them, the eyes had been those of an unsuccessful rapist.

How little we know of what there is to know. I wish that I were going to live a long time instead of going to die today because I have learned much about life in these four days; more, I think than in all other time. I'd like to be an old man to really know. I wonder if you keep on learning or if there is only a certain amount each man can understand. I thought I knew so many things that I know nothing of. I wish there was more time.

You know lots of criticism is written by characters who are very academic and think it is a sign you are worthless if you make jokes or kid or even clown. I wouldn't kid Our Lord if he was on the cross. But I would attempt a joke with him if I ran into him chasing the money changers out of the temple.

If a writer stops observing he is finished. But he does not have to observe consciously nor think how it will be useful. Perhaps that would be true at the beginning. But later everything he sees goes into the great reserve of things he knows or has seen.