Quote collection
798 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Got tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks. Great success shooting the knife underhand into the piano. The woodworms are so bad and eat hell out of all the furniture that you can always claim the woodworms did it."
"Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail."
"Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with that there is"
"Never delay kissing a pretty girl or opening a bottle of whiskey"
"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
"It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write."
"Wine ... offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than possibly any other purely sensory thing which may be purchased."
"All thinking men are atheists."
"Got tight on absinthe last night. Did knife tricks."
"Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones."
"The only thing that can ruin a good day is people."
"We wait always for something that does not come."
"Find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement. Then write it down making it clear so that the reader can see it too. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over."
"The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."
"Ronda is the place where to go, if you are planning to travel to Spain for a honeymoon or for being with a girlfriend. The whole city and its surroundings are a romantic set. ... Nice promenades, good wine, excellent food, nothing to do."
"Never confuse movement with action."
"I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before."
"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."
"If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care."
"I rewrote the ending of 'Farewell to Arms' 39 times before I was satisfied."