When people die you have to bury them but you do not have to write about it. You do not have to write about an undertake nor all the business of burial. You do not have to write about that day nor the next night of the day after and the night after, and the progress from numbness into sorrow nor all the days after and all the nights after for a life time. In writing you have a certain choice that you do not have in life.

More from Ernest Hemingway

View all quotes →