The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway ↗

Some highlights

The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.

He did not say that because he knew that if you said a good thing it might not happen.

“Fish,” he said softly, aloud, “I’ll stay with you until I am dead.”

“I’ll just steer south and west,” he said. “A man is never lost at sea and it is a long island.”

The old man’s head was clear and good now and he was full of resolution but he had little hope. It was too good to last, he thought.

He hit it without hope but with resolution and complete malignancy.

“But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”