Ernest Hemingway quotes about desire

That is not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.

Poor, poor dear Cat. And this was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other.

God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. I had not wanted to fall in love with any one.

It’s all right. Keep right on lying to me. That’s what I want you to do.

There isn’t any me. I’m you. Don’t make up a separate me.

Only being sent away from you. You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got.

Oh, darling, I want you so much I want to be you too.

Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.

I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards.

“Hell,” I said, “I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?” “Yes. I want to ruin you.” “Good,” I said, “that’s what I want too.”

It was as though we met again after each of us had been away on a long journey.

You always feel trapped biologically.

There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion.

I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before.

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else.

Pedro Romero had the greatness. He loved bull-fighting, and I think he loved the bulls, and I think he loved Brett.

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that.

I can’t help it. I’ve never been able to help anything.

“My God!” said Brett, “the things a woman goes through.”

I looked and saw her coming through the crowd in the square, walking, her head up, as though the fiesta were being staged in her honor, and she found it pleasant and amusing.

“I’m going back to Mike.” I could feel her crying as I held her close. “He’s so damned nice and he’s so awful. He’s my sort of thing.”

That would be different. It’s my fault, Jake. It’s the way I’m made.