海明威的冰山（摘）

「I always try to write on the principal of the iceberg. There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn't show. 」－Ernest Hemingway, 1958

「他作記者時必須學會描寫動作，作家應該描寫行動，而不是感情，他希望讀者們能夠在他對行動的精確描寫基礎之上，產生自己的感情。」

「他說過寫作的本質是省略，而不是羅列。舉一個很好的例子，比如他描寫一個鬥牛士被牛頂傷，他集中描寫了陽光如何在他大腿露出骨頭上反射出亮光。他並沒有說鬥牛士感到多麼劇烈的疼痛，也沒有說在場的觀眾有多麼的震驚，因為讀者們可以感受到自己心中的震驚。」

「他每天開始寫作時，先把前一天寫的讀一遍，寫到哪裡就改到哪裡。全書寫完後又從頭到尾改一遍；草稿請人家打字謄清後又改一遍；最後清樣出來再改一遍。他認為這樣三次大修改是寫好一本書的必要條件。」

「《戰地鐘聲》的創作花了17個月，脫稿後天天都在修改，清樣出來後，他連續修改了96個小時，沒有離開房間。他主張『去掉廢話』，把一切華而不實的詞句刪去。」

『小說中的人物不是靠技巧和想象編造出來的角色。他們必須是出自作者自己經過溶化了的切身體驗，出自他的知識，出自他的頭腦，出自他的內心，出自一切他身上的東西 』

海明威諾貝爾獎致答辭，一九五四年十二月十日：

(第54屆諾貝爾獎頒獎典禮，海明威人在古巴，因病不克出席。他寫了一篇致答辭，央請美國駐瑞典大使 John M. Cabot 代為宣讀。)

「Having no facility for speech-making and no command of oratory nor any domination of rhetoric, I wish to thank the administrators of the generosity of Alfred Nobel for this Prize.

No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.

It would be impossible for me to ask the Ambassador of my country to read a speech in which a writer said all of the things which are in his heart. Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses he will endure or be forgotten.

Writing at its best is a lonely life.

Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone, and if he is a good enough writer, he must face eternity or the lack of it each day.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with good luck, he will succeed.

How simple the writing of literature would be if it were only necessary to write in another way what has been well written. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.

I have spoken too long for a writer. A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it. Again I thank you.」