Green Hills of Africa Quotes

“where a man feels at home, outside of where he’s born, is where he’s meant to go.”
― ernest hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“We have very primative emotions. It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“Finishing is what you have to do. If you don't finish, nothing is worth a damn”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“All I wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already. Now, looking out the tunnel of trees over the ravine at the sky with white clouds moving across in the wind, I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet what there is, now, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still that afterwards you wait to hear it move, and it is slow in starting. But you are not alone because if you have every really loved her happy and untragic, she loves you always; no matter whom she loves nor where she goes she loves you more.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“The best sky was in Italy or Spain and in Northern Michigan in the fall”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the discomforts that you paid to make it real, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be in it and to move slowly.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“For we have been there in the books and out of the books—and where we go, if we are any good, there you can go as we have been. A country, finally, erodes and the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any importance permanently, except those who practised the arts,”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet what there is, now, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long, sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still that afterwards you wait to hear it move,and it is slow in starting.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“...that most exciting perversion of life; the necessity of accomplishing something in less time than should truly be allowed for its doing.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“The earth gets tired of being exploited.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art endures for ever, but it is very difficult to do and now it is not fashionable.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“Ако в ранни младини си платил своята дан на идеята за общество, демокрация и други такива, а след това откажеш да се обременяваш с неща от този род и решиш да отговаряш само пред себе си, ти заменяш задушевната и задушна атмосфера на приятелството срещу нещо, което можеш да изпиташ единствено ако си сам. Нещо, което все още не можеш точно да определиш, но го чувствуваш, когато пишеш хубаво и вярно нещо с вътрешна убеденост, и макар че ония, на които плащат да четат и коментират написаното, не го харесват и казват, че то е измама, ти си абсолютно сигурен в неговата стойност. Или когато вършиш нещо, което хората не смятат за сериозно занимание, а ти знаеш, уверен си, че то е важно и винаги е било, че не е по-малко важно от всички модни неща. Или когато си сам с това нещо в морето и знаеш, че Гълфстриймът, с който живееш, който обичаш, който познаваш и за който искаш да научиш повече си тече, както е текъл, откак свят светува, и е мил бреговете на този дълъг, красив, нещастен остров, преди Колумб да го е видял, и не нещата, които научаваш за него, и тези, които винаги са били в него, са нетленни и стойността им е непреходна, защото това морско течение ще тече така, както е текло след индианците, след испанците, след англичаните, след американците и след кубинците и всички различни системи на управление, ще тече, след като богатството и бедността, мъченичеството и саможертвата, продажността и жестокостта си отидат, отнесени като купищата смет — зловонни, яркоцветни, осеяни тук-там с нещо лъскаво, — които общинският шлеп изтърсва в синята вода, тя потъмнява на десетина метра дълбочина, по-тежкото потъва, по-лекото остава на повърхността и течението го подхваща — палмови клонки, тапи, бутилки, изгорели електрически крушки, някой презерватив или корсет, носещ се в дълбочината, откъснати страници от учебник, подут труп на куче, плъх, обезобразена котка, а събирачите на остатъци са тук с лодките си и подбират боклука както овчари стадото си, бъркат във водата с дългите куки и вадят интересни находки, заинтригувани, съсредоточени и точни като историци — това са хора с гледна точка, които преценяват. Течението е незабележимо, но отнася по пет такива товара боклук дневно, когато нещата вървят добре в Хавана, а на десет мили по-нататък водите му са пак тъй чисти, сини и неизменни, каквито са били и преди влекачът да е докарал на буксир шлепа с боклука. И палмовите клонки на нашите победи, изгорелите електрически крушки на нашите открития и просветления, празните презервативи на голямата ни любов плават безсмислено по течението, което единствено е непреходно.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“They all wanted something that i did not want and i would get it without wanting it, if it worked.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“I pointed to the canvas where the rain was making the finest sound that we, who live much outside of houses, ever hear.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“Maybe I'll be able to later. I can do nearly everything later.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“This is all very dull, I would not state it except that you ask for it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“And tell me, who is the greatest writer in America?"
"My husband," said my wife.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“It must be very nice to have a daughter."
"You cannot know how nice it is. It is like a second wife. My wife knows now all I think, all I say, all I believe, all I can do, all that I cannot do and cannot be. But now there is always someone you do not know, who does not know you, who loves you in ignorance and is strange to you both. Some one very attractive that is yours and not yours...”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“Pop was her ideal of how a man should be, brave, gentle, comic, never losing his temper, never bragging, never complaining except in a joke, tolerant, understanding, intelligent, drinking a little too much as a good man should, and, to her eyes, very handsome.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“To go down and up two hands-and-knee climbing ravines and then out into the moonlight and the long, too-steep shoulder of mountain that you climbed one foot up to the other, one foot after the other, one stride at a time, leaning forward against the grade and the altitude, dead tired and gun weary, single file in the moonlight across the slope, on up and to the top where it was easy, the country spread in the moonlight, then up and down and on, through the small hills, tired but now in sight of the fires and”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing—the stream.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“For we have been there in the books and out of the books - and where we go, if we are any good, there you can go as we have been. A country, finally, erodes and the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any importance permanently, except those who practised the arts, and these now wish to cease their work because it is too lonely, too hard to do, and it is not fashionable. A thousand years makes economics silly and a work of art endures forever, but it is very difficult to do and now it is not fashionable. People do not want to do it any more because they will be out of fashion and the lice who crawl on literature will not praise them. Also it is very hard to do. So what? So I would go on reading about the river that the Tartars came across when raiding, and the drunken old hunter and the girl and how it was then in the different seasons.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“The way to hunt is for as long as you live against as long as there is such an such an animal; just as the way to paint is as long as there is you and colors and canvas, and to write as long as you can live and there is pencil and paper or ink or any machine to do it with, or anything you care to write about, and you feel a fool, and you are a fool, to do it any other way.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“Our chance was at the start when he was down and we missed him. We had lost that. No, our best chance, the only chance a rifleman should ever ask, was when I had a shot and shot at the whole animal instead of calling the shot. It was my own lousy fault.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa: The Hemingway Library Edition

“Also I wanted the whisky for itself, because I loved the taste of it and because, being as happy as I could be, it made me feel even better.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“All I wanted to do now was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa: The Hemingway Library Edition

“Now, heavy socks removed, stepping tentatively, trying the pressure of the leather against the toes, the argument past, she wanting not to suffer, but to keep up and please Mr. J. P., me ashamed at having been a four-letter man about boots, at being righteous against pain, at being righteous at all, at ever being righteous, stopping to whisper about it, both of us grinning at what was whispered, it all right now, the boots too, without the heavy socks, much better, me hating all righteous bastards now, one absent American friend especially, having just removed myself from that category, certainly never to be righteous again, watching Droopy ahead, we went down the long slant of the trail toward the bottom of the canyon where the trees were heavy and tall and the floor of the canyon, that from above had been a narrow gash, opened to a forest-banked stream.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“A country, finally, erodes and the dust blows away, the people all die and none of them were of any importance permanently, except those who practised the arts, and these now wish to cease their work because it is too lonely, too hard to do, and is not fashionable.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“I've never read anything, though, that could make you feel about the country the way we feel about it. . .
I'd like to try to write something about the country and the animals and what it's like to some one who knows nothing about it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

“But then, who of us hasn't had a promised land, caught up with happiness, the constant nymph, and run with her swiftly through the green birch forest of Arden only to trip and fall and watch her disappear into the trees without a backward glance? So light a candle, love the light, and face the darkness when the candle fails.”
― Patrick Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa