In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you'll dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it to the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.
Ernest HemingwayI always like it at a war. There is always the chance that you will get up the next morning and be killed and not have to write.
Ernest HemingwayBut in the night he woke and held her tight as though she were all of life and it was being taken from him. He held her feeling she was all of life there was and it was true.
Ernest HemingwayOnce writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it. Financial security then is a great help as it keeps you from worrying.
Ernest HemingwayThe real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over.
Ernest HemingwayTo me heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in and two lovely houses in the town; one where I would have my wife and children and be monogamous and love them truly and well and the other where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors.
Ernest Hemingway