Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective
Interpretation
Writing about experiences requires distance for clarity and understanding.
Ernest Hemingway suggests that to truly convey the essence of a place in writing, one must first remove themselves from it. Being away provides the necessary perspective to reflect on and appreciate the nuances and realities that may be overlooked when one is immersed in the environment, allowing for a more insightful and articulate expression.
In practice
A writer discussing their travel experiences in a public talk.
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.
You seek identity in the midst of indistinguishab le chaos, in sprawling nameless reality.
If the mind, that rules the body, ever so far forgets itself as to trample on its slave, the slave is never generous enough to forgive the injury, but will rise and smite the oppressor.
Moreover, I consider that Carthage should be destroyed.
There's no black and white in this world; it's all grey. That's what people are like! No one think they're a baddie. Everyone thinks they're trying to do their bit to make the world a better place.
I soon began to sense a fundamental perceptual difficulty among male scholars (and some female ones) for which 'sexism' is too facile a term. It is really an intellectual defect, which might be termed 'patrivincialism' or patrochialism': the assumption that women are a subgroup, that men's culture is the 'real' world, that patriarchy is equivalent to culture and culture to patriarchy, that the 'great' or 'liberalizing' periods of history have been the same for women as for men.
Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he. We are two lions litterβd in one day, and I the elder and more terrible.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.