I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.

The remark captures Hemingway’s blunt, workmanlike view of writing as a process of heavy drafting and ruthless revision rather than effortless inspiration. By contrasting a “masterpiece” page with many pages of “shit,” he emphasizes that most output is necessarily imperfect and that quality emerges through selection, cutting, and rewriting. The “wastebasket” stands for discipline: the willingness to discard what doesn’t meet one’s standard. The quote also demystifies artistic genius, implying that even a celebrated stylist produces large amounts of unusable material, and that persistence and self-editing are central to craft.