The Old Man and the Sea is Ernest Hemingway’s last major work of fiction, first published in 1952. The book won a Pultizer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. On the surface, it is a tale of an aged fisherman and his struggle to land a giant marlin. At a deeper level, this classic novel studies man’s resolution, faith and endurance in the face of defeat. Here are a dozen great quotes from this timeless story:
- Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.
- Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?
- He did not say that because he knew that if you said a good thing it might not happen.
- No one should be alone in their old age, he thought. But it is unavoidable.
- I may not be as strong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.
- Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.
- It’s silly not to hope. It’s a sin he thought.
- The thousand times that he had proved it means nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.
- “But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
- Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.
- Luck is a thing that comes in many forms and who can recognize her?
- He rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure.
