Quotes

Midnight in Paris

Gertrude Stein: We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.

*

Gil: Would you read it?

Ernest Hemingway: Your novel?

Gil: Yeah, it's about 400 pages long, and I'm just looking for an opinion.

Ernest Hemingway: My opinion is I hate it.

Gil: Well you haven't even read it yet.

Ernest Hemingway: If it's bad, I'll hate it because I hate bad writing, and if it's good, I'll be envious and hate all the more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.

*

Ernest Hemingway: I believe that love that is true and real, creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And then the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face, like some rhino-hunters I know or Belmonte, who is truly brave... It is because they make love with sufficient passion, to push death out of their minds... until it returns, as it does, to all men... and then you must make really good love again.

*

Adriana: I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night.

Gil: No, you can't, you couldn't pick one. I mean I can give you a checkmate argument for each side. You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.

*

Gil: These people don't have any antibiotics!

Adriana: What are you talking about?

Gil: Adriana, if you stay here though, and this becomes your present then pretty soon you'll start imagining another time was really your... You know, was really the golden time. Yeah, that's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life's a little unsatisfying.

Adriana: That's the problem with writers. You are so full of words.

*

Ernest Hemingway: No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.

*

Gil: Gil Pender.

Ernest Hemingway: Hemingway.

Gil: Hemingway?

Ernest Hemingway: You liked my book?

Gil: Liked? I loved all of your work.

Ernest Hemingway: Yes. It was a good book because it was an honest book, and that's what war does to men. And there's nothing fine and noble about dying in the mud unless you die gracefully. And then it's not only noble but brave.

*

Gil: That's what the present is. It's a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.

*

Ernest Hemingway: If you're a writer,

[slams fist on table]

Ernest Hemingway: declare yourself the best writer. But your not, as long as I'm around, unless you want to put the gloves on and settle it.