Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor.
Interpretation
Bullfighting is a unique art form where the artist faces life-threatening risks while relying on personal honor for performance quality.
In this quote, Ernest Hemingway highlights the perilous nature of bullfighting as an art, emphasizing that the fighters not only showcase their skill and creativity but also confront the real possibility of death. The mention of 'honor' underscores the importance of integrity and personal commitment in their performance, suggesting that true artistry involves both talent and the willingness to take profound risks.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of risk in art forms during a panel on creative expression.
He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.
How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy.
Wine is the most civilized thing in the world.
There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
Any woman or man who would write the truth of their lives would write a great work. But no one has dared to write the truth of their lives.
I am married to the theater, and the films are only my mistress.
I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.
I'm the haphazard engineer of my own music.
The artist must have something to say, for mastery over form is not his goal but rather the adapting of form to its inner meaning.
The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.
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