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Willa Cather

Willa Cather Quotes

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Famous Willa Cather Quotes

“Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.”

PeopleThinkingWritingArtMadeStoriesSeemsYoungLife IsStuffResultsColorSpringArt IsAddLocalsObservationLuxuryHollowFullnessRichnessRichness Of Life
Book:Willa Cather in person: interviews, speeches, and letters
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“[Some] people really expect the passion of love to fill and gratify every need of life, whereas nature only intended that it should meet one of many demands. They insist on making it stand for all the emotional pleasures of life and art; expecting an individual and self-limited passion to yield infinite variety, pleasure, and distraction, and to contribute to their lives what the arts and the pleasurable exercise of the intellect gives to less limited and less intense idealists.”

PeopleNeedsGivingShouldArtSelfPassionIndividualPleasureEmotionalExerciseDemandInfiniteIntellectIntenseVarietyYieldDistractionExpectingIdealistPleasures Of LifeLove Passion
Book:The Essential Willa Cather Collection
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“There was only - spring itself, the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere; in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm high wind - rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive ... If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.”

IfsShouldLightKnownSkyWindSpringRedShould HaveEssenceCloudsWarmRisingSunshinePaleSinkingRestlessnessImpulsivePrairieShould Have KnownBlindfolds
Book:The Best of Willa Cather
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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.”

LongBookCharacterHumanityGirlNaturalPleasureSituationNovelProduceColdBenefitsCreatingIllusionIdealsComplexesIntuitionRidiculousYesterdayEvolveNovelistsConventionalCreamCorrespondingTiresomeDissectionCreating Characters
Book:Willa Cather in person: interviews, speeches, and letters
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“One realizes that 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. In those simple relationships of loving husband and wife, affectionate sisters, children and grandmother, there are innumerable shades of sweetness and anguish which make up the pattern of our lives day by day, though they are not down in the list of subjects from which the conventional novelist works.”

HumansChildrenRealizingSimpleHalfOur LivesWifeSubjectsHusbandEgoPatternsSeekingListsHuman LifeNovelistsTragicGrandmotherShadeConventionalPullingSweetnessAnguishHusband And WifeHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsAffectionatePulling AwayLoving Husband
Book:Not Under Forty
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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.”

WritingStoriesWomenFictionSeaAdventureHealthyBattleAnd LoveWineTalesSubjectiveScornCommonplaceManlyStoutYarn
Book:Willa Cather
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“The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do notintrude upon each other. The Navajos are not much in the habit of giving or of asking help. Their language is not a communicative one, and they never attempt an interchange of personality in speech. Over their forests there is the same inexorable reserve. Each tree has its exalted power to bear.”

ThinkingGivingHelpingLanguageGrowsTreePersonalityBearsHabitSpeechAskingDistanceForestsReservesExaltedInexorableInterchange
Book:The Song of the Lark
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“Now that Stevenson is dead I can think of but one English- speaking author who is really keeping his self-respect and sticking forperfection. Of course I refer to that mighty master of language and keen student of human actions and motives, Henry James.”

ThinkingHumansI CanSelfActionCoursesLanguageStudentsMastersMotiveSelf RespectHuman ActionsEnglish Speaking
Book:A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays
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