“in Ernest..”

One of the literary great, Ernest Hemingway, seemed to be the master of quotable quotes on creativity and writing. I’ve outlined below some such quotes that have hit me in the guts, penetrated my heart and stimulated my mind. Enjoy...

“If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”

“When I was writing, it was necessary for me to read after I had written. If you kept thinking about it, you would lose the thing that you were writing before you could go on with it the next day.”

“It was a very simple story called ‘Out of Season’ and I had omitted the real end of it which was that the old man hanged himself. This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything if you knew that you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood.”

“All I must do now was stay sound and good in my head until morning when I would start to work again.”

“After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day.”

Pretty good hey?