I write description in longhand because that's hardest for me and you're closer to the paper when you work by hand, but I use the typewriter for dialogue because people speak like a typewriter works.
Interpretation
Hemingway emphasizes the importance of different writing techniques for different aspects of storytelling.
In this quote, Hemingway conveys his personal approach to writing, illustrating the contrast between the physicality of longhand writing and the mechanical nature of typewriting. He suggests that the tactile experience of writing by hand brings a deeper connection to the work, while using a typewriter for dialogue captures the rhythm and cadence of spoken language, highlighting the significance of form and technique in storytelling.
In practice
A writing workshop discussing the different methods of drafting and editing.
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.
Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?
The best thing commercially, which is the worst artistically, by and large, is the most successful.
Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas.
I do not believe in the art which is not the compulsive result of man's urge to open his heart
When you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture.
Ah, music, sacred tongue of God! I hear thee calling and I come.
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