imagining lightning striking sea sickness

now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well. well, he would not have to fail at trying to write them either. maybe you could never write them, and that was why you put them off and delayed the starting. well he would never know, now.

* * *

it was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell. he had had his life and it was over and then he went on living it again with different people and more money, with the best of the same places, and some new ones.

you kept from thinking and it was all marvelous. you were equipped with good insides so that you did not go to pieces that way, the way most of them had, and you made an attitude that you cared nothing for the work you used to do, now that you could no longer do it.

ernest hemingway
the snows of kilimanjaro