Islands in the Stream Quotes

“Being against evil doesn't make you good. Tonight I was against it and then I was evil myself. I could feel it coming just like a tide... I just want to destroy them. But when you start taking pleasure in it you are awfully close to the thing you're fighting.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“You roll back to me.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“And you treat me wonderfully and keep all your promises.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“But perhaps he had enough animal strength and detached intelligence that he could make another start.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“You never understand anybody that loves you.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“He thought that he would lie down and think about nothing. Sometimes he could do this. Sometimes he could think about the stars without wondering about them and the ocean without problems and the sunrise without what it would bring.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“- What happens to people that love each other?
- I suppose they have whatever they have, and they are more fortunate than others. Then one of them gets the emptiness forever.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“He knew too what it was to live through a hurricane with the other people of the island and the bond that the hurricane made between all people who had been through it. He also knew that hurricanes could be so bad that nothing could live through them.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Out of all the things you could not have there were some that you could have and one of those was to know when you were happy and to enjoy all of it while it was there and it was good.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“And chase hard and good and with no mistakes and do not overrun them.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Happiness is often presented as being very dull but, he thought, lying awake, that is because dull people are sometimes very happy and intelligent people can go around making themselves and everyone else miserable. He had never found happiness dull. It always seemed more exciting than any other thing and capable of as great intensity as sorrow to those people who were capable of having it. This may not be true but he had believed it to be true for a long time and this summer they had experienced happiness for a month now and, already, in the nights, he was lonely for it before it had ever gone away.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Practice any faith you wish. Got a ball field up the island where you can practice. I'll give the Deity a fast one high and inside if he crowds the plate.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“I don’t have to be proud of it. I only have to do it well." – Thomas Hudson”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Nobody likes to life anchors.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“They are not sorrows, so much as terrible things.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Why do they have to be such damned fanatics? We chased good and we will always fight. But I hope we are not fanatics.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“We’re no kin,” Thomas Hudson said. “We just used to live in the same town and make some of the same mistakes.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“If the wind rises it can push us against the flood when it comes.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“What are you made of?"
"What you love. And steel added.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Think about after the war and when you will paint again. There are so many good ones to paint and if you paint as well as you really can and keep out of all other things and do that, it is the true thing. You can paint the sea better than anyone now if you will do it and not get mixed up in other things. Hang on good now to how you truly want to do it. You must hold hard to life to do it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Now the boy was gone and the kitten had grown into an old cat and had outlived the boy. The way he and Boise felt now, he thought, neither one wanted to outlive the other. I don't know how many people and animals have been in love before, he thought. It probably is a very comic situation. But I don't find it comic at all.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“I think I understand, Willie,” he said. “Oh shit,” Willie said. “You never understand anybody that loves you.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“This is a bad life for good children”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Grief doesn't split.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“There is a time to break all your rules. Maybe not all.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“You have anything else eating you?” “Just in general.” “How?” “Well I’m half crazy and you’re half crazy and then we’ve got this crew of half saints and desperate men.” “It isn’t bad to be half saint and half desperate man.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“If I find any Krauts, can I kill them?” “The Colonel said all but one,” Thomas Hudson said. “Try to save a smart one.” “I’ll give them all IQ tests before I open up.” “Give yourself one.” “Mine’s goddam low or I wouldn’t be here,” Willie said, and he set out. He walked contemptuously and he watched the beach and the country ahead as carefully as a man could watch.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“Maybe this time you will get these characters. You did not destroy their undersea boat but you were faintly instrumental in its destruction. If you can round up the crew, it will be extremely useful. Then why don’t you care anything about anything? he asked himself. Why don’t you think of them as murderers and have the righteous feelings that you should have? Why do you just pound and pound on after it like a riderless horse that is still in the race? Because we are all murderers, he told himself. We all are on both sides, if we are any good, and no good will come of any of it. But you have to do it. Sure, he said. But I don’t have to be proud of it. I only have to do it well. I didn’t hire out to like it. You did not even hire out, he told himself. That makes it even worse.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“It was her. No one else got out of a car that way, practically and easily and beautifully and at the same time as though she were doing the street a great favor when she stepped on it: Everyone had tried to look like her for many years and some came quite close. But when you saw her, all the people that looked like her were only imitations. She was in uniform now and she smiled at the doorman and asked him a question and he answered happily and nodded his head and she started across the sidewalk and into the bar. There was another woman in uniform behind her.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream

“I do feel better, Thomas Hudson thought. That is the funny part. You always feel better and you always get over your remorse. There’s only one thing you don’t get over and that is death.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream