Willa Cather Quotes - Page 8

Quotes about:

• It is cremated youth. It is all yours--no one gave it to you.

  Willa Cather

  Youth

  Willa Cather (1990). “Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters”, p.36, U of Nebraska Press

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• He had been to see Mrs. Erlich just before starting home for the holidays, and found her making German Christmas cakes. She took him into the kitchen and explained the almost holy traditions that governed this complicated cookery. Her excitement and seriousness as she beat and stirred were very pretty, Claude thought. She told off on her fingers the many ingredients, but he believed there were things she did not name: the fragrance of old friendships, the glow of early memories, belief in wonder-working rhymes and songs.

  Willa Cather

  Christmas, Song, Memories

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.687, Simon and Schuster

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• A burnt dog dreads the fire.

  Willa Cather

  Dog, Fire, Dread

  Jane Austen, L. M. Montgomery, Eleanor H. Porter, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Brontë (2011). “25 Favorite Novels”, p.3994, Smashbooks

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• It is a tragic hour, that hour when we are finally driven to reckon with ourselves, when every avenue of mental distraction has been cut off and our own life and all its ineffaceable failures closes about us like the walls of that old torture chamber of the Inquisition.

  Willa Cather

  Wall, Failure, Cutting

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

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• There was a new kind of strength in the gravity of her face, and her colors still gave her that look of deep-seated health and ardor.

  Willa Cather

  Color, Looks, Faces

  Willa Cather (2012). “My Ántonia”, p.168, Courier Corporation

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• If you love the good thing vitally, enough to give up for it all that one must give up, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I tell you, there is such a thing as creative hate!
  “A contempt that drives you through fire, makes you risk everything and lose everything, makes you a long sight better than you ever knew you could be.

  Willa Cather

  Giving Up, Hate, Fire

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Essential Willa Cather Collection”, p.1481, eBookIt.com

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• Prayers said by good people are always good prayers

  Willa Cather

  Prayer, People, Said

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• So long as a novelist works selfishly for the pleasure of creating character and situation corresponding to his own illusions, ideals and intuitions, he will always produce something worth while and natural. Directly he takes himself too seriously and begins for the alleged benefit of humanity an elaborate dissection of complexes, he evolves a book that is more ridiculous and tiresome than the most conventional cold cream girl novel of yesterday.

  Willa Cather

  Girl, Book, Character

  Willa Cather (1990). “Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters”, p.59, U of Nebraska Press

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• One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away.

  Willa Cather

  Book, Years, Trying

  Willa Cather (2015). “O Pioneers”, p.4, Xist Publishing

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• To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent.

  Willa Cather

  Artist, Talent, Notes

  Willa Cather (2013). “Not Under Forty”, p.47, Knopf

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• The prayers of all good people are good.

  Willa Cather

  Prayer, People, Good People

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.536, Simon and Schuster

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• "More than him has done that," said Antonia sadly, and the girls murmured assent.

  Willa Cather

  Girl, Heart, Done

  Willa Cather (2006). “My Antonia”, p.177, 1st World Publishing

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• It is scarcely exaggeration to say that if one is not a little mad about Balzac at twenty, one will never live; and if at forty one can still take Rastignac and Lucien de Rubempre at Balzac's own estimate, one has lived in vain.

  Willa Cather

  Mad, Twenties, Littles

  Willa Cather (1988). “Not Under Forty”, p.24, U of Nebraska Press

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• The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

  Willa Cather

  Quality, Analysis, Firsts

  Willa Cather (2013). “Not Under Forty”, p.74, Knopf

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• One may have staunch friends in one's own family, but one seldom has admirers.

  Willa Cather

  Family, May, Admirer

  Willa Cather (2012). “The Song of the Lark”, p.42, Courier Corporation

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• Henry Colbert, the miller, always breakfasted with his wife--beyond that he appeared irregularly at the family table.

  Willa Cather

  Book, Wife, Tables

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• From two ears that had grown side by side, the grains of one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting themselves into the future, and the grains from the other lay still in the earth and rotted; and nobody knew why.

  Willa Cather

  Light, Two, Ears

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.125, Simon and Schuster

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• An artist's saddest secrets are those that have to do with his artistry.

  Willa Cather

  Artist, Secret, Artistry

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Essential Willa Cather Collection”, p.1799, eBookIt.com

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• If the street life, not the Whitechapel street life, but that of the common but so-called respectable part of town is in any city more gloomy, more ugly, more grimy, more cruel than in London, I certainly don't care to see it. Sometimes it occurs to one that possibly all the failures of this generation, the world over, have been suddenly swept into London, for the streets are a restless, breathing, malodorous pageant of the seedy of all nations.

  Willa Cather

  Breathing, Cities, This Generation

  "Willa Cather in Europe". Book by Willa Cather, 1956.

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• Happy people do a great deal for their friends.

  Willa Cather

  People, Happy People, Deals

  Willa Cather (2013). “The Best of Willa Cather”, p.30, Simon and Schuster

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• In a few hours one could cover that incalculable distance; from the winter country and homely neighbours, to the city where the air trembled like a tuning-fork with unimaginable possibilities.

  Willa Cather

  Country, Distance, Winter

  Willa Cather (2011). “Lucy Gayheart”, p.20, Vintage

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• A work-room should be like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one.

  Willa Cather

  Shoes, Matter, Rooms

  Willa Cather (2002). “The Professor's House”, p.59, U of Nebraska Press

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• Sometimes I wonder why God ever trusts talent in the hands of women, they usually make such an infernal mess of it. I think He must do it as a sort of ghastly joke.

  Willa Cather

  Thinking, Hands, Talent

  Willa Cather (1967). “The Kingdom of Art: Willa Cather's First Principles and Critical Statements, 1893-1896”, p.408, U of Nebraska Press

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• If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry

  Willa Cather

  Girl, Would Be, World

  Willa Cather (2012). “My Ántonia”, p.145, Courier Corporation

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• I have not much faith in women in fiction.... Women are so horribly subjective and they have such scorn for the healthy commonplace. When a woman writes a story of adventure, a stout sea tale, a manly battle yarn, anything without wine, women, and love, then I will begin to hope for something great from them, not before.

  Willa Cather

  Women, Writing, Wine

  Willa Cather (1993). “Willa Cather”

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