Jack Hemingway

“I know he wanted me to love fishing and hunting, and I believe that he deliberately set about to make me want to do it on my own initiative.”

“If you look at the 1960s, Hemingway was viewed on the basis of the myth of his lifestyles rather than viewing his work. Machismo was badly viewed; feminism was becoming a more noble cause. I think the feminists took him apart and assumed he mistreated women.”

“My father was a fun-loving person, not the evil, sadistic, macho, woman-hating guy that comes through in some of the biographies.”

“I spent the first 50 years of my life being the son of a famous father and am now spending the last 50 as the father of famous children.”

“Papa loved to have me show off my scars.”

“There is a new way of seeing him now. Because of that, there has been a lot of scholarship in Hemingway that is more thorough.”

“For years my nickname was 'Bum.'”

“Stacy Keach was marvelous. He looked more like my father than anyone who had ever played him before.”

“I am 75, but I'm younger than he was when he died because I didn't live life as hard as he did.”

“I'm not a furniture person. You sit on the stuff, sleep on it, make love on it.”

“It's hard to think of your parents as lovers. You know you got here somehow, but it's hard to visualize.”

“The only thing that's really important is the stuff he wrote. That's what he cared about, and that's what's worth protecting. The myth and the man time eventually separates. But the work endures.”

“I was raised like a little soft French kid, if you want to know.”

“I started reading the Carlos Baker biography of Dad but couldn't finish it. I had the impression I was reading about a guy who, well, just wouldn't be very nice to be around. I wish Baker could have known Dad because exactly the opposite was true.”

“Frankly I never seriously read my father's books until after he died. Up to then, there had been no point.”

“You might have to go through some smaller rainbows to get at the big fish, but they're in there.”

“My father was my hero, both for the physical things he could do and for the values he taught me, about honesty and standing up for what you believe in. I never felt like I was living in his shadow.”

“My father had two personas: first, literary, and second, the way he lived. I've been brought up with all of this, but many other people have liked and admired his lifestyle.”

“My mother was a fine woman. But it couldn't have worked. Dad was such a macho guy and she was eight years older and becoming matronly.”

“He was my hero, though it was probably for the wrong reasons. Because he could hit people harder than anyone else, and things like that. It's only recently I've come to understand how selfish he could be, how hard on his children.”