Ernest Hemingway On Life And Being A Writer

On the anniversary of the late, great writer Ernest Hemingway’s birthday, below are some of his most famous thoughts on life and being a writer:

In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway has his character Santiago say, “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” 

The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, many are strong at the broken places.

The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.

Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

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.

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don't cheat with it.

Ernest Hemingway defined the word "courage" as "grace under pressure". When describing someone he considered to be a hero, Hemingway wrote that his hero is: "... a man who lives correctly, following the ideals of honor, courage and endurance in a world that is sometimes chaotic, often stressful, and always painful."

You can read my previous post on Hemingway via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2019/07/on-this-day-in-history-american-writer.html