“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.”
Architecture“I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.”
God“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.”
Architecture“There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”
Death“Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”
Death“There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.”
Great“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.”
Life“I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.”
Hope“It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
Business“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
Great“That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.”
Good“Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?”
Failure“I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”
Communication“All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.”
Good“Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.”
Age“That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.”
Best“I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
Good“His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.”
Time“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
Strength“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
Love“I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.”
Men“For a war to be just three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive.”
War