In this 1934 letter, Ernest Hemingway gives F. Scott Fitzgerald his honest opinion on Fitzgerald’s new novel, Tender Is the Night.
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.”