Firsts Quotes by Ernest Hemingway

Il faut d'abord durer (First One Must Endure).

— Ernest Hemingway

The first draft of anything is sh*t.

— Ernest Hemingway

In order to write about life first you must live it.

— Ernest Hemingway

I try not to borrow, first you borrow then you beg.

— Ernest Hemingway

The first and most important thing of all, at least for writers today, is to strip language clean, to lay it bare…

— Ernest Hemingway

The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.

— Ernest Hemingway

Don't get discouraged because there's a lot of mechanical work to writing. I rewrote the first part of Farewell to Arms at…

— Ernest Hemingway

First, there must be talent. . .Then there must be discipline. . .Then there must be. . .and absolute conscience. . .to prevent faking.

— Ernest Hemingway

One cat just leads to another." [Letter from Finca Vigia, Cuba, to his first wife, Elizabeth Hadley Richardson (1943).]

— Ernest Hemingway

He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for…

— Ernest Hemingway

Use short sentences. Use short first paragraphs. Use vigorous English. Be positive, not negative.

— Ernest Hemingway

As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early 'forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed…

— Ernest Hemingway

The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one'… (The man who first said that) was probably a coward… He knew…

— Ernest Hemingway

He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was…

— Ernest Hemingway

I do not want you ever to initiate any action for any refunds of taxes without first consulting me and presenting the…

— Ernest Hemingway

When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after the first light as possible.…

— Ernest Hemingway

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There…

— Ernest Hemingway

I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man. Under the black hat, when I had first seen them, the…

— Ernest Hemingway

I might say that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardnesses in first trying to make something that…

— Ernest Hemingway

When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There…

— Ernest Hemingway

Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had…

— Ernest Hemingway

When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed; not you. .…

— Ernest Hemingway

The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then…

— Ernest Hemingway

I might say that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardnesses in first trying to make something that…

— Ernest Hemingway

How do you tell a valuable French book?' 'First there are the pictures. Then it is a question of the quality of…

— Ernest Hemingway

In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it…

— Ernest Hemingway

When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There…

— Ernest Hemingway