“Oh, darling, you will be good to me, won’t you? Because we’re going to have a strange life.”
Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms (Primary source)
A Farewell to Arms, published in 1929, is Ernest Hemingway’s semi-autobiographical novel set during World War I. It tells the poignant story of an American ambulance driver, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, serving in the Italian army, and his doomed love affair with a British nurse, Catherine Barkley. The novel explores themes of love and loss, the brutality and futility of war, and the struggle to find meaning in a chaotic, indifferent world.
More about “A Farewell to Arms” →
“Oh, darling,” she said. “You will be good to me, won’t you?”
Ernest Hemingway
What the hell, I thought. I stroked her hair and patted her shoulder. She was crying.
“You will, won’t you?” She looked up at me. “Because we’re going to have a strange life.”
“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary sourceMore quotes by Ernest Hemingway →
“There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“If you know that this life is all that you have, wouldn’t you make the most of it?”
— Ayn Rand Disputed