On Writing ~

Hemmingway won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. Five years earlier it had been awarded to another American novelist, William Faulkner. The two writers did not have a very high opinion of each other. Faulkner said of Hemingway that he had no courage, that "he had never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary. When Hemmingway heard this, he said, "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."

~THE LITTLE, BROWN BOOK OF Anecdotes, Clifton Fadman General Editor, 1985.