I have a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of my friends.
Interpretation
Hemingway humorously acknowledges a tendency to imagine the private lives of others.
In this quote, Ernest Hemingway reflects on a personal quirk of his imagination, where he finds himself envisioning the intimate moments of his friends' lives. This hints at a deeper curiosity about human relationships and the complexities that lie behind closed doors, suggesting that while we often engage with others' public personas, we are quietly intrigued by the private facets of their experiences.
In practice
During a discussion about personal boundaries, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of privacy in friendships.
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.
Sara waited a respectful time, knowing there was nothing she could do to ease the woman's pain. Grief was a place, Sara understood, where a person went alone. It was like a room without doors, and what happened in that room, all the anger and the pain you felt, was meant to stay there, nobody's business but yours.
At least 260 species of animal have been noted exhibiting homosexual behavior but only one species of animal ever, so far as we know, has exhibited homophobic behavior - and that's the human being.
Women forget all the things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget.
You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt.
Heβs gone, Harry told himself. Heβs gone. He had to keep thinking it as he washed and dressed, as though repetition would dull the shock of it. Heβs gone and heβs not coming back. And that was the simple truth of it, Harry knew, because their protective enchantments meant that it would be impossible, once they vacated this spot, for Ron to find them again.
Hospitality in the prairie country is not limited. Even if your enemy passes your way, you must feed him before you shoot him.
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