Ernest Hemingway

ME:
Thank you for your time Mr Hemingway – this is a great honour. I am just one of millions of fans who love your writing. The movies were great but really don’t do justice to your books at all in my honest opinion.

HEMINGWAY:
“Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”

ME:
Hmmm I never thought of it in that context – interesting.
Before I forget I need to ask this for a friend of mine. He asked me to ask you if you think that your style of writing while standing up would help with his writing being that he has broken his right hip twice and walks with a limp.

HEMINGWAY:
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it - don't cheat with it - the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places; the most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector!”

ME:

Wow! I think he will feel his question well and truly answered, thank you.
Tell me, what kind of things inspire you to write?

HEMINGWAY:

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way - as a writer, you should not judge, you should understand”

ME:

Well, I know it’s the magic way you have with words that keeps me captivated.

HEMINGWAY:

“All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time - after writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love; in order to write about life first you must live it!”

ME:

Hmmm….some times people question me about how I learned to write the way I do.

HEMINGWAY:

“It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way!”

ME:

Aha! Thank you….that’s great advice, you have great wisdom sir.. (smiles)

HEMINGWAY:

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise, they grow careful - live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the romance of the unusual!!”

ME:

I hope you don’t mind I’ve made a few notes - if I don’t I’m worried I might forget and I’d never forgive myself!!.

HEMINGWAY:

Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can, but train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything. 

ME:

Thank you so much , though you’re life may have ended tragically, you have attained immortality through your wonderful writings – thank you so much for sharing a few minutes with me – this has been almost a religious experience for me, you wouldn’t like to close our conversation with a small prayer would you??.

HEMINGWAY:

“Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.”

ME:

Amen!