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...

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of...

Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing…. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the...

You had to have these peasant leaders quickly in this sort of war and a real peasant leader might be a little too much like Pablo. You couldn’t wait for the real Peasant Leader to...

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as...

Home is where the heart is, home is where the fart is.Come let us fart in the home.There is no art in a fart.Still a fart may not be artless.Let us fart and artless fart...

I knew how severe I had been and how bad things had been. The one who is doing his work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one who poverty bothers.

Incominciamo.

God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. I had not wanted to fall in love with any one. But God knows I had and I lay on the bed in...

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

I never used to realize it, I guess. I try and play it along and just not make trouble for people. Probably I never would have had any trouble at all if I hadn’t run...

Then he was sorry for the great fish… How many people will he feed?.. But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course, not. There is no one worthy of eating him from the...

Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged.

Below Les Avants there was a chalet where the pension was wonderful and we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the...

It was baking hot in the square when we came out after lunch with our bags and the rod-case to go to Burguete. People were on top of the bus, and others were climbing up...

I obscenity in the milk of my shame.