Authors / Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway quotes

1899–1961 · American novelist, Nobel laureate 1954

Hemingway's short, flat sentences changed how English prose sounds. Two of his most famous "quotes" — including the six-word story — are not his.

1 real · 2 not theirs

Really theirs

1 quotes traced to Ernest Hemingway's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.

Source: A Farewell to Arms, ch. 34 (1929)

Not theirs

2 famous lines credited to Ernest Hemingway that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

Not theirs

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Actually: Quote Investigator traces the idea to sportswriter Red Smith, not Hemingway.

Not theirs

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Actually: The story of Hemingway writing this on a bet first appears decades after his death; versions of the ad circulated in newspapers from 1906.