"I might say that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardnesses in first trying to make something that has not heretofore been made. Almost no new classics resemble other previous classics. At first people see only the awkwardness. Then they are not so perceptible. When they show so very awkwardly people think these awkwardnesses are the style and many copy them. This is regrettable."

3 likes

Source: Ernest Hemingway, Matthew Joseph Bruccoli (1986). “Conversations with Ernest Hemingway”, p.121, Univ. Press of Mississippi

About the author

Ernest Hemingway

Novelist

Ernest Hemingway was a celebrated American novelist and short story writer known for his distinctive prose style and works like 'The Old Man and the Sea.'

All quotes by Ernest Hemingway →

Same author

More quotes by Ernest Hemingway

See all →
Ernest Hemingway Novelist

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

Read quote
Ernest Hemingway Novelist

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed."

Read quote
Ernest Hemingway Novelist

"Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything."

Read quote