Writing Quotes by Ernest Hemingway

“The author must write what he has to say, not speak it.”

— Ernest Hemingway

If a writer stops observing, he is finished.

— Ernest Hemingway

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.

— Ernest Hemingway

Easy writing makes hard reading.

— Ernest Hemingway

“Easy reading is hard writing,”

— Ernest Hemingway

My writing is nothing, my boxing is everything.

— Ernest Hemingway

Worry destroys the ability to write.

— Ernest Hemingway

Wearing down seven number two pencils is a good day's work.

— Ernest Hemingway

Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones.

— Ernest Hemingway

What a writer has to do is write what hasn't been written before or beat dead men at what they have done.

— Ernest Hemingway

Writing is a hard business...but nothing makes you feel better.

— Ernest Hemingway

There can be no great literature in America until her writers have learned to trust her implicitly and love her devoutly.

— Ernest Hemingway

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.

— Ernest Hemingway

Find the best writers, pay them to write, and avoid typos at all costs.

— Ernest Hemingway

“Writing. It is like no other light. A very clear and hollow light.”

— Ernest Hemingway

You know you’re writing well when you're throwing good stuff into the wastebasket.

— Ernest Hemingway

Having books published is very destructive to writing. It is even worse than making love too much. Because when you make love…

— Ernest Hemingway

We need more true mystery in our lives Hem- he said. The completely unambitious writer and the really good unpublished poem are…

— Ernest Hemingway

You write a book like that that you're fond of over the years, then you see that happen to it, it's like…

— Ernest Hemingway

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be…

— Ernest Hemingway

Never write about a place until you're away from it, because it gives you perspective. Immediately after you've seen something you can…

— Ernest Hemingway

The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you…

— Ernest Hemingway

Find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement. Then write it down making it clear so that…

— Ernest Hemingway

I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; or if not that then…

— Ernest Hemingway

For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He…

— Ernest Hemingway

How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well…

— Ernest Hemingway

If a writer stops observing he is finished. But he does not have to observe consciously nor think how it will be…

— Ernest Hemingway

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the…

— Ernest Hemingway

Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which burns. He learns several important things very quickly.…

— Ernest Hemingway

“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when…

— 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

“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows and the…

— Ernest Hemingway

Now a writer can make himself a nice career while he is alive by espousing a political cause, working for it, making…

— Ernest Hemingway

“I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing truly what you really felt, rather than…

— 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’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again,…

— Ernest Hemingway

“In those days there was no money to buy books. Books you borrowed from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which…

— Ernest Hemingway

“To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was…

— Ernest Hemingway

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. If a writer can…

— Ernest Hemingway

“Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris as in Paris I could write about Michigan. I did not know it…

— Ernest Hemingway