25 The Sun Also Rises Quotes From the Ernest Hemingway Novel That Some Consider His Greatest Ever

By Stephanie Kirby | Published September 7, 2023

Fans of Ernest Hemingway or classic literature will love these The Sun Also Rises quotes.

The Sun Also Rises is a novel by Ernest Hemingway that was published by Scribner in 1926.

The book is based on people that Hemingway knew and on his life experiences.

The book’s plot follows an American and a group of expatriates who travel to Spain.

The group meets to celebrate the running of the bulls, and while sharing experiences, they have ups and downs throughout the group, mainly centered around the beautiful and promiscuous Lady Brett Ashley.

Although Lady Brett is engaged, she has multiple affairs with other men in the group as well as a bullfighter named Romero.

Take a look at these The Sun Also Rise quotes to learn more about the novel.

The Sun Also Rises Quotes From Jake

Since the novel follows Jake Barnes, he has a lot to say and narrate.

1. “You were happy a minute ago.” — Jake

2. “I hated to leave France. Life was so simple in France.” — Jake

3. “He no longer had his greatest moments in the bull-ring.” — Jake

4. “Nobody ever lives life all the way up except bull-fighters.” — Jake

5. “I stood up. I had heard them talking from a long way away.” — Jake

6. “I have never seen a man in civil life as nervous as Robert Cohn.” — Jake

7. “But I couldn’t live quietly in the country. Not with my own true love.” — Jake

8. “We all felt good, and we felt healthy, and I felt quite friendly to Cohn.” — Jake

9. “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.” — Jake

10. “It was a good morning; there were high white clouds above the mountains.” — Jake

Iconic The Sun Also Rises Quotes

Check out these iconic quotes from the classic 1926 novel.

11. “We could have had such a good time together.” — Brett

12. “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.” — Robert

13. “The three of us sat at the table, and it seemed as though about six people were missing.” — Jake

14. “It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.” — Jake

15. “It had rained a little in the night, and it was fresh and cool on the plateau, and there was a wonderful view.” — Jake

16. “Let no man be ashamed to kneel here in the great out-of-doors. Remember the woods were God’s first temples.” — Bill

17. “I looked at myself in the mirror of the big armoire beside the bed . . . of all the ways to be wounded. I suppose it was funny.” — Jake

The Sun Also Rises Quotes For Fans of the Novel

Fans of Hemingway and his novel, The Sun Also Rises, will be sure to love these quotes.

18. “I only thought if you fished them some time it might remind you of what a good time we had.” — Harris

19. “A fog had come over the mountains from the sea…you could not see the tops of the mountains.” — Jake

20. “In the Basque country, the land all looks very rich and green, and the houses and villages look well-off and clean.” — Jake

21. “He was not sure that there were any great moments. Things were not the same, and now life only came in flashes.” — Jake

22. “Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact, he disliked it.” — Jake

23. “She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes.” — Jake

24. “I had the feeling as in a nightmare of it all being something repeated, something I had been through and that now I must go through again.” — Jake

25. “It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening.” — Jake