“Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source“Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.”
— Henry David Thoreau Primary source“Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“I wish I could write well enough to write that story, he thought. What we did. Not what the others did to us.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I’d had good luck working. 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.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“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.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary sourceStory Truth Self-expression Minimalism Legacy