The bulls are my best friends." I translated to Brett. "You kill your friends?" she asked. "Always," he said in English, and laughed. "So they don't kill me.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the complex relationship between humans and the things they rely on for survival, often intertwined with humor and irony.
In this quote, Hemingway uses the metaphor of bulls as 'best friends' to explore the idea of companionship in survival. The subsequent ironic twist, where the speaker admits to killing them for his own safety, underscores the conflicting nature of relationships where love and betrayal can coexist. It evokes the theme of human dependence on others, even when such relationships can lead to sacrifice or hardship.
In practice
During a philosophy discussion about the nature of relationships and sacrifice.
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.
Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public.
What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get in the habit of thinking, this is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is a much darker and deeper place than this, and much of it is occupied by jellyfish and things.
The saddest journey in the world is the one that follows a precise itinerary. Then you're not a traveler. You're a f@@king tourist.
Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history.
According to Gandhi, the seven sins are wealth without works, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle. Well, Hubert Humphrey may have sinned in the eyes of God, as we all do, but according to those definitions of Gandhi's, it was Hubert Humphrey without sin.
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