No source for this sentence has been found anywhere in Ernest Hemingway’s novels, short stories, poems or published letters. Wikiquote files it under “Disputed,” noting only that it “may have originated in a 2000 post to the Usenet group alt.support.depression,” and Check Your Fact rated the Hemingway attribution False in 2019 after two of his biographers rejected it — one of them on the grounds that the closing “you know?” is simply not how Hemingway wrote.
“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?” not Ernest Hemingway. No source has been found in his novels, short stories, poems or letters; Wikiquote lists the line under "Disputed," and Check Your Fact rated the attribution False on 22 July 2019 after biographers Mary V. Dearborn ("It's definitely not Hemingway") and James Hutchisson ("Most likely not by Hemingway") rejected it. The true author is unknown; Wikiquote's only lead is a possible 2000 post to the Usenet group alt.support.depression. — Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Ernest Hemingway. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the themes of happiness and doubt. Theme: "I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The paper trail
Popularly credited to
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
Documented source
None. No matching or similar phrase found in his novels, short stories, poems or published letters.
Status on Wikiquote
Disputed — “No source in Hemingway’s works has been found.”
Only lead on origin
A possible 2000 post to the Usenet group alt.support.depression (per Wikiquote; the cited Google Groups message is no longer publicly readable).
I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?
Unsourced
There is no fuller context to show. The line has never been located inside a novel, story, letter, interview or transcript — it circulates only as a free-floating sentence with a famous name attached.
Wikiquote ↗ lists the line in its Disputed section, not among his sourced quotations, with the note: “No source in Hemingway’s works has been found. May have originated in a 2000 post to the Usenet group alt.support.depression.”
Check Your Fact ↗ published a fact check on this exact sentence on 22 July 2019. Verdict: False. Searches of collections of Hemingway’s novels, poems and short stories failed to return any matching or similar phrase.
Two biographers were asked directly and both said no. Dearborn: “It’s definitely not Hemingway. This is the first time I’ve heard the quote.” Hutchisson: “Most likely not by Hemingway.” Archived text of the fact check ↗.
The pattern is well documented for this author generally: The Hemingway Society ↗ keeps a standing page on quotes he did not say, and names Goodreads, BrainyQuote, Quotefancy, iHeartIntelligence and Pinterest as the sites that keep them in circulation.
No rights status can honestly be asserted for this wording. Because the sentence has never been tied to any published work, there is no first-publication date to reason from — so it must not be treated as public domain. If Wikiquote’s lead is right and it began as a 2000 Usenet post, the words would belong to an unidentified modern author and would be in copyright.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
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Fact-check
How a sourceless line became a Hemingway line
Nobody has ever produced a page, a letter or a transcript. What exists is a sentence, a famous name welded to it, and roughly two decades of copying.
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The standard creditErnest Hemingway No source found
Every large quote site runs it under his name with no work cited. Wikiquote ↗ puts it in its Disputed section and states plainly that no source in Hemingway’s works has been found.
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The stylistic objectionHemingway’s biographers Rejected
Mary V. Dearborn, author of Ernest Hemingway: A Biography, told the Daily Caller News Foundation the syntax and diction are wrong — “Hemingway would never make an observation and then end it with ‘you know?’” James Hutchisson answered the same query with “Most likely not by Hemingway.” Both replies are quoted in full ↗.
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How it spreadQuote aggregators and social feeds Sourceless copying
The Goodreads entry ↗ carries no book, no page and no date — just “― Ernest Hemingway” and more than 9,500 likes. The Hemingway Society names exactly this class of site as the reason fake Hemingway quotes keep multiplying.
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The only lead on originAn anonymous Usenet poster (unconfirmed) Unverified
Wikiquote suggests the line “may have originated in a 2000 post to the Usenet group alt.support.depression” and cites a Google Groups message. Google has since retired public browsing of its Usenet archive, so that message can no longer be read; the lead is neither confirmed nor ruled out.
It reads like late-night Hemingway — short, flat, faintly rueful, the self-knowledge of a man who has stopped arguing with himself. That resemblance is exactly why it travels. But when Check Your Fact ↗ went looking in 2019, searches of collections of his novels, poems and short stories returned no matching or similar phrase, and the verdict came back False.
The two biographers consulted were blunter than the search results. “It’s definitely not Hemingway. This is the first time I’ve heard the quote,” Mary V. Dearborn told the Daily Caller News Foundation; James Hutchisson answered, “Most likely not by Hemingway.” Dearborn also noted what is true of the real man: like many ‘sensitive’ types he had trouble with insomnia. Hemingway does discuss sleep in his personal letters — usually in the context of not getting any, telling F. Scott Fitzgerald about it in one and describing sleeping pills in another. Loving sleep was not his problem.
“Hemingway would never make an observation and then end it with ‘you know?’” — biographer Mary V. Dearborn
Why the trail goes cold
Wikiquote’s only lead is a citation to a thread in the Usenet group alt.support.depression, dated 2000. That citation points at Google Groups, which retired public browsing of its Usenet archive; the linked message no longer resolves to readable text, and the older raw-message endpoint returns a 404. So the suggestion cannot currently be confirmed or ruled out from the primary record, and Wikiquote itself only says the line may have originated there.
Quote Investigator ↗, the usual court of last resort for this kind of question, has no article on the phrase — a site search for the distinctive words returns nothing. That absence is not evidence of authenticity; it simply means no one has yet found an earlier printed appearance to trace.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1899–1961 · American novelist and short-story writer
Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 for a body of work built on short declarative sentences and things left unsaid — a style so recognisable that it has become an open invitation to forgery. He is one of the internet’s most reliable magnets for unsourced aphorisms: The Hemingway Society ↗ maintains a page precisely because so many lines circulating under his name cannot be traced to him, and points at Goodreads, BrainyQuote, Quotefancy and Pinterest as the machinery that keeps them moving. This sleep line is one of those.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available documentation
No source located in Ernest Hemingway’s published work or correspondence. Listed under “Disputed” in “Ernest Hemingway,” Wikiquote, accessed 27 July 2026, with the note: “No source in Hemingway’s works has been found. May have originated in a 2000 post to the Usenet group alt.support.depression.” Rated False in Brad Sylvester, “Fact Check: Did Ernest Hemingway Say, ‘I Love Sleep. My Life Has The Tendency To Fall Apart When I’m Awake’?” Check Your Fact (Daily Caller News Foundation), 22 July 2019.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?’?” Last verified 27 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-love-sleep-my-life-has-the-tendency-to-fall-apart-when-im/