Willa Cather Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life; that they can never be wholly satisfactory, that every ego is half the time greedily seeking them, and half the time pulling away from them.

  Willa Cather

  Ego, Half, Pulling Away

  Willa Cather (2011). “My Mortal Enemy”, p.18, Vintage

  18 Copy quote

• The sincerity of feeling that is possible between a writer and a reader is one of the finest things I know.

  Willa Cather

  Feelings, Sincerity, Finest

  6 Copy quote

• Imagination, which is a quality writers must have, does not mean the ability to weave pretty stories out of nothing. In the right sense, imagination is a response to what is going on — a sensitiveness to which outside things appeal. It is a composition of sympathy and observation.

  Willa Cather

  Mean, Imagination, Quality

  Willa Cather (1990). “Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters”, p.15, U of Nebraska Press

  10 Copy quote

• Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man, really; a man uncertain, and puzzled, and in the dark like ourselves.

  Willa Cather

  Forgiveness, Fall, Dark

  Willa Cather (1938). “The novels and stories of Willa Cather ...”

  22 Copy quote

• Life was so short that it meant nothing at all unless it were continually reinforced by something that endured; unless the shadows of individual existence came and went against a background that held together.

  Willa Cather

  Shadow, Together, Individual

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Essential Willa Cather Collection”, p.894, eBookIt.com

  12 Copy quote

• I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.

  Willa Cather

  Nature, Tree, Way

  O Pioneers! pt. 2, ch. 8 (1913)

  24 Copy quote

• The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify - it was like the light of truth itself.

  Willa Cather

  Sunset, Winter, Light

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.574, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• Hunger is a powerful incentive to introspection.

  Willa Cather

  Powerful, Incentives, Hunger

  Willa Cather (2016). “The First Willa Cather MEGAPACK®: 50 Classic Short Works”, p.134, Wildside Press LLC

  10 Copy quote

• Some people's lives are affected by what happens to their person or their property; but for others fate is what happens to their feelings and their thoughts -- that and nothing more.

  Willa Cather

  Fate, People, Feelings

  Willa Cather (2011). “Lucy Gayheart”, p.27, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• There is often a good deal of the child left in people who have had to grow up too soon.

  Willa Cather

  Children, Growing Up, People

  Willa Cather (2015). “O Pioneers”, p.10, Xist Publishing

  11 Copy quote

• Personal life becomes paler as the imaginative life becomes richer.

  Willa Cather

  Imaginative, Personal Life

  Willa Cather (1954). “My Antonia”

  9 Copy quote

• No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.

  Willa Cather

  Women, Self Esteem, Persons

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Essential Willa Cather Collection”, p.57, eBookIt.com

  12 Copy quote

• The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.

  Willa Cather

  People, Desire, World

  Willa Cather (1970). “The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902”, p.5, U of Nebraska Press

  12 Copy quote

• Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand - a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods - or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.

  Willa Cather

  Art, Writing, Breakfast Food

  Willa Cather (1988). “Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art”, p.103, U of Nebraska Press

  15 Copy quote

• The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity.

  Willa Cather

  Voice, Captivity, Wild Things

  Willa Cather (2012). “The Song of the Lark”, p.133, Courier Corporation

  17 Copy quote

• I wondered if the life that was right for one was ever right for two!

  Willa Cather

  Two, Ifs

  Willa Cather (2012). “My Ántonia”, p.190, Courier Corporation

  10 Copy quote

• It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.

  Willa Cather

  Real, Book, Writing

  8 Copy quote

• life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

  Willa Cather

  Life, Running, Sweet

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.375, Simon and Schuster

  18 Copy quote

• The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring; the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells, and the grass under foot had a reflection of the blue sky in it.

  Willa Cather

  Art, Spring, Reflection

  Willa Cather (2011). “Death Comes for the Archbishop”, p.200, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches.

  Willa Cather

  Talking, Bird, Tree

  Willa Cather (2016). “My çntonia”, p.53, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  9 Copy quote

• The sky was a midnight-blue, like warm, deep, blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water-lily, floating forward with an invisible current.

  Willa Cather

  Lying, Moon, Blue

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.782, Simon and Schuster

  75 Copy quote

• All Southern women wished of their menfolk was simply to be 'like Paris handsome and like Hector brave'.

  Willa Cather

  Paris, Brave, Southern

  6 Copy quote

• On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men's affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice.

  Willa Cather

  Men, Ice, Weather

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.577, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.

  Willa Cather

  Father, Home, Men

  Willa Cather (2016). “My çntonia”, p.159, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  21 Copy quote

• Oh, that's the beauty of the rose, that it blossoms and dies.

  Willa Cather

  Rose, Dies

  11 Copy quote

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