I was a little drunk. Not drunk in any positive sense but just enough to be careless.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the experience of being slightly intoxicated to the point of losing inhibitions, which can lead to careless actions.
In this quote, Ernest Hemingway captures a moment of vulnerability that arises from mild intoxication. The admission of being 'a little drunk' speaks to the complexities of human behavior, illustrating how alcohol can loosen our grip on caution and lead to moments of impulsive or irresponsible actions, albeit without the glamorous connotation that sometimes accompanies drinking. This phrase suggests a nuanced understanding of the relationship between substance use and decision-making.
In practice
This quote could be used in a conversation about the effects of alcohol on personal choices.
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.
I think that communism was a major force for violence for more than 100 years, because it was built into its ideology - that progress comes through class struggle, often violent.
If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?
The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure, while always arriving.
It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.
and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead.
Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living.
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