All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.
Interpretation
Good books convey deeper truths than mere events could.
This quote by Ernest Hemingway emphasizes the idea that the essence of great literature lies in its ability to capture and express fundamental truths about the human experience, often transcending the actual events that inspired them. The emotional and psychological insights found in good books can resonate more profoundly than reality itself, allowing readers to connect with universal themes and experiences that may not fully align with real-life occurrences but reflect deeper human truths.
In practice
In a book club discussion about character development.
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.
Throughout my career, when I have been rejected, there was sometimes subtext, and it was this: People will not read your work because these are not universal stories.
Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.
Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic.
I sent The World Well Lost to one editor who rejected it on sight, and then wrote a letter to every other editor in the field warning them against the story, and urging them to reject it on sight without reading it.
A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago.
... and the very folds of the curtains contained secrets and sighs.
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