Quote collection
798 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. Well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. Maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. Well he would never know, now."
"I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I knew about."
"What did I know best that I had not written about and Lost? What did I know about truly and care for the most?"
"Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten."
"He liked the works of his friends, which is beautiful as loyalty but can be disastrous as judgement."
"Having books published is very destructive to writing."
"Perhaps wars weren't won anymore. Maybe they went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years' War."
"Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions."
"My,' she said. 'We're lucky that you found the place.' We're always lucky,' I said and like a fool I did not knock on wood. There was wood everywhere in that apartment to knock on too."
"How did we go bankrupt? Two ways. Slowly, and then all of a sudden."
"I spend a hell of a lot of time killing animals and fish so I wouldn't kill myself. When a man is in rebellion against death, as I am in rebellion against death, he gets pleasure out of taking to himself one of the godlike attributes; that of giving it."
"I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the whole world--or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out too thin. (On Writing.)"
"The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see whether you believed it or not."
"I wish I had died before I ever loved anyone but her."
"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."
"The only place where you could see life and death, i. e., violent death now that the wars were over, was in the bull ring and I wanted very much to go to Spain where I could study it. I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things, and one of the simplest things of all and the most fundamental is violent death."
"I did not understand them but they did not have any mystery, and when I understood them they meant nothing to me. I was sorry about this but there was nothing I could do about it."
"We have very primitive emotions,” he said . “It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though."
"A good life is not measured by any biblical span."
"When we came back to Paris it was clear and cold and lovely."