In order to write about life first you must live it.

The line expresses a credo often associated with Hemingway’s public persona: that convincing writing depends on firsthand experience. It suggests that “life” is not merely a subject to be observed from a distance but something to be undergone—work, love, risk, loss—so that the writer’s descriptions carry the weight of reality rather than secondhand sentiment. Read this way, the quote elevates lived experience as a kind of apprenticeship for art, implying that technique alone cannot substitute for knowledge earned through action. It also hints at an ethical stance: writing about others and the world demands humility and exposure to the same conditions one depicts.