A biography for Jack Hemingwayhasn’t been written yet.
“He drank standing up because he said, 'If you drink sitting down, you don't know if you will be... able to stand up.'”
“When he was with you, he was totally yours. Of course Papa might tell you to wait in the car for five minutes while he talked to just this one person and he'd be right back. He might be gone an hour and a half. He was a very hard person to get out of places, actually.”
“I wanted to write a book about Hemingway's Paris, but a professor beat me to it. I suddenly realized other people were making a living off all the things that have to do with my family background so I've got one good story to tell and I'm telling it.”
“People ask me what I do, and I tell them, 'I'm a fisherman and a hunter.' They look at me like I'm lazy or crazy.”
“He was a physically imposing presence - 6 feet tall and very broad in the shoulders - and an imposing intellectual presence as well. Whenever he was in a group, he dominated it.”
“When French troops entered Paris in August, 1944, Papa came in from Rambouillet and first liberated the Explorers' club. But his major objective was the Ritz. He came in and assured security, making sure nobody else could get to the wine cellar.”
“His tastes were probably formed by whatever wife he was married to at the time and what he could afford.”
“My mother, along with Papa's other eventual wives - Pauline, Marty Gelhorn, Mary Welch - they all, at one time or another, no matter how angry they were at him at the moment, said, 'Look, Papa is special. He writes so beautifully. We have to let this go on.'”
“He's never portrayed as being funny. He was a very funny, happy, lively person. Fun to be around and exciting. He was my hero.”
“I was always somebody's son or somebody's father.”
“Hatchery trout are like New Yorkers who live crowded together. Eventually the hatchery trout shove the wild trout out. They aren't used to congregating together and eventually they go crazy and disappear.”
“Comfort and solidity was what made him happy.”
“At the time of his death and the few years before, I was just starting to pull myself together and make a reasonably good living after years of dismal failure. I think he would be delighted to know that I've stuck to one thing and have done it well.”
“I was proud of Papa for his sports.”
“I'm not a Hemingway scholar, so I've come across some surprises.”
“Food has always been a thing in our family.”
“But one of the most important and lasting things my father taught me was a love of the outdoors and how to respect it. I have tried to pass that curiosity and respect on to my kids and to others.”
“We were out drinking and fishing one day, and somebody said to me, 'People are starting to make money off your name. You and your brothers should do it.'”
“When I was in prep school, an English teacher said to me, 'Hemingway, I expect more from you!' And I said, 'Why, sir?'”
“Tennis parents and stage mothers should take note. The kid has got to want to do it, not just to please the parent, but for himself.”