Willa Cather quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Willa Cather

Willa Cather Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Willa Cather on Wise Famous Quotes.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

The spark in his eye, which is one's very self, caught the spark in hers that was herself, and for a moment they looked into each other's natures.

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.

Most publishers, like most writers, are ruined by their successes.

Merely having seen the season change in a country gave one the sense of having been there for a long time.

In little towns, lives roll along so close to one another; loves and hates beat about, their wings almost touching.

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

I guess everybody thinks about old times, even the happiest people.

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

I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.

Oh, this is the joy of the rose;
That it blows,
And goes.

Father Latour began to tell them about his friendly relations with Protestants in Ohio, but they had not room in their minds for two ideas.

Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere.

And that's what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own individual lives.

Poor soul, poor soul!' grandmother groaned. 'I'd like to think

How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!

She began to wonder whether she would not do better to finish her life alone. What was left of life seemed unimportant.

The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.

The way, they were

The trees and shrubbery seemed well-groomed and social, like pleasant people.

Personal hatred and family affection are not incompatible; they often flourish and grow strong together.

One is best in one's own country.

There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

You must pray for him, my child. It is to such as he that our Blessed Mother comes nearest.

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

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

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

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know.

Montaigne says somewhere that in early youth the joy of life lies in the feet.

You feel that, properly, Alexandra's house is the big-out-of-doors, and that it is in the soil that she expresses herself.
-O Pioneers

I tell you there is such a thing as creative hate.

What was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself.

The land belongs to the future.

People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find.

I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now.

The old man smiled. 'I shall not die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived.

What if - what if Life itself were the sweetheart?

Happy people do a great deal for their friends.

Pittsburgh was even more vital, more creative, more hungry for culture than New York. Pittsburgh was the birthplace of my writing.

She was like someone in whom the faculty of becoming interested is worn out.

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

Don't love it so well, Clark, or it may be taken from you. Oh, dear boy, pray that whatever your sacrifice may be, it be not that.

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

Too much information is rather deadening.

No nation has ever produced great art that has not made a high art of cookery, because art appeals primarily to the senses.

You might tell me next week, Miller, what you think science has done for us, besides making us very comfortable." As

Her rapid footsteps shook her own floors, and she routed lassitude and indifference wherever she came.

prayed for the poor and destitute in great cities, where the struggle for life was harder than it was here with us.

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

It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled.

It's by understanding me, and the boys, and mother, that you have helped me. I expect that is the only way one person ever really can help another.

the miracle happened; one of those quiet moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage than the noisy, excited passages in life.

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

Because he talked so little, his words had a peculiar force; they were not worn dull from constant use.

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

Lena slipped her silk sleeves into the jacket I held for her, smoothed it over her person, and buttoned it slowly.

The end is nothing, the road is all

I only want impossible things," she said roughly. "The others don't interest me.

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

Be generous with yourself. Don't stop short of splendid things.

A burnt dog dreads the fire.

Old people, who have felt blows and toil and known the world's hard hand, need, even more than children do, a woman's tenderness.

This land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces.

The irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand.

Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they are in love with somebody.

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

I first met Myra Henshawe when I was fifteen, but I had known her about ever since I could remember anything at all.

The great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes.

Youth, when it is hurt, likes to feel itself betrayed.

William Tavener never heeded ominous forecasts in the domestic horizon, and he never looked for a storm until it broke.

He knew he would always remember her, standing there with that expectant, forward-looking smile, enough to turn the future into summer.

A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.

Only a Woman, divine, could know all that a woman can suffer.

But I can't help feeling scared when I think how I will miss you- more than you will ever know.

Doctrine is well enough for the wise, Jean; but the miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love.

Miracles surround us at every turn, if we but sharpen our perceptions to them.

Only the stupid and the phlegmatic should teach.

Well, this I know: our best years are when we're working hardest and going right ahead when we can hardly see our way out.

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

Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there - that, it seems to me, is created.

Art, it seems to me, should simplify.

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

The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska.

It was to him a very strange and perplexing place, where people wore fine clothes and had hard hearts.

Some memories are realities and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

Prayers said by good people are always good prayers

Personal life becomes paler as the imaginative life becomes richer.

Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.

We sat down and made a nest in the long red grass. Yulka curled up like a baby rabbit and played with a grasshopper

Loyal? As loyal as anyone who plays second fiddle ever is.

It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.

Things away from home often look better than they are.

Some things are best learned in calm, others in storm.

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact.

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

Grandfather's farm sometime before daybreak, after

I had the sense of coming home to myself, and of having found out what a little circle man's experience is.

When people ask me if it has been a hard or easy road, I always answer with the same quotation, the end is nothing, the road is all.Willa Cather

It's all very well to tell us to forgive our enemies; our enemies can never hurt us very much. But oh, what about forgiving our friends?