There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

Are you a communist?””No I am an anti-fascist””For a long time?””Since I have understood fascism.

Su decisión habia sido permanecer en aguas profundas y tenebrosas, lejos de todas las trampas y cebos y traiciones. Mi decisión fué ir allá a buscarlo, mas allá de toda gente. Mas allá de toda...

You can either buy clothes or buy pictures,” she said. “It’s that simple. No one who is not very rich can do both. Pay no attention to your clothes and no attention at all to...

Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it’s made truly. The thing...

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

I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. Through the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh–then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace...

The Lord is my shepherdI shall not want him for longHe maketh me to lie down in green pasturesand there are no green pasturesHe leadeth me beside still watersand still waters run deep

You’re going to have things to repent, boy,’ Mr. John had told Nick. ‘That’s one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is...

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.

Oh Jake,” Brett said, “We could have had such a damned good time together.”Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.Yes,” I...

wonder what day god created the egg’ ‘how should we know? we should not question. our stay on earth is not for long. let us rejoice and believe and give thanks’. ‘eat a egg

There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. If a writer omits...

I had an inheritance from my father,It was the moon and the sun.And though I roam all over the world,The spending of it’s never done.

As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.

I don’t know who made the laws; But I know there ain’t no law that you got to go hungry.

Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range...

He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. … This is the smell I...

All thinking men are atheists.

If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed.

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a...

The one who is doing his work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one the poverty is hard on.

Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

I felt very lonely when they were all there.

He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any many could have.

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do.

Why must man not marry?” “He cannot marry. He cannot marry,” he said angrily. “If he is to lose everything, he should not place himself in a position to lose that. He should not place...

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

If my Valentine you won’t be,I’ll hang myself on your Christmas tree.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who...

Then there is the other secret. There isn’t any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The...

I’ve seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and...

He can’t have gone, he said “Christ know he can’t have gone. He’s making a turn. Maybe he has been hooked before and her remembers something of it.” The he felt the gentle touch on...

Religion is the opium of the poor

The people that I liked and had not met went to the big cafes because they were lost in them and no one noticed them and they could be alone in them and be together.

A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.

They questioned us but they were polite because we had passports and money. I do not think they believed a word of the story and I thought it was silly but it was like a...

The priest was good but dull. The officers were not good but dull. The King was good but dull. The wine was bad but not dull.

No. Have it here where it is quiet.” “You and your quiet”, said Brett. “What is it men feel about quiet?” “We like it,” said the count. Like you like your noise, my dear.

There will always be people who say it does not exist because they cannot have it. But I tell you it is true and that you have it and that you are lucky even if...

Remember to get the weather in your damn book–weather is very important.

I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so...

Each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all.

It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

A writer’s problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having found what is true,...

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...

But, he thought, I keep them with precision. Only I have no luck anymore. But who knows? Maybe today. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather...