All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.
Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.
As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.
If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
In order to write about life first you must live it.
The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.
Write hard and clear about what hurts.
Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything.
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.
We’re stronger in the places that we’ve been broken.
Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.
He’ll never be frightened. He knows too damn much.
Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.
Show the readers everything, tell them nothing.
You make something from things that have happened and from things that exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, and you make something through your invention that is truer than anything true and alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.
You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?