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Willa Cather

Willa Cather Quotes

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Famous Willa Cather Quotes

“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.”

IfsWantShouldWritingYearsLongBookRealEndsWantedDiesNovelImpossibleGoes OnTraditionTragedyWoundsReal LifeScarConventionalHappy EndingsOld Wounds
Author:Willa Cather
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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.”

IfsWorldHas BeensSometimesCareNationsCommonCitiesGenerationsStreetsTownsDon't CareUglyLondonBreathingRestlessRespectableGloomyThis GenerationPageantStreet LifeWhitechapel
Author:Willa Cather
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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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“I wanted to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which could not be very far away. The light and air abot me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would only be sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow shadows on the grass.”

IfsWorldLittlesLightWantedLeftWalksSunAirSkyShadowRedEdgesGrassFar AwayFloatsHawksOver The EdgeEdge Of The World
Book:60 WESTERNS: Cowboy Adventures, Yukon & Oregon Trail Tales, Famous Outlaws, Gold Rush Adventures & much more: Riders of the Purple Sage, The Night Horseman, The Last of the Mohicans, Rimrock Trail, The Hidden Children, The Law of the Land, Heart of the West, A Texas Cow-Boy, The Prairie…
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“Sometimes," I ventured, "it doesn't occur to boys that their mother was ever young and pretty. . . I couldn't stand it if you boys were inconsiderate, or thought of her as if she were just somebody who looked after you. You see I was very much in love with your mother once, and I know there's nobody like her.”

IfsKnowsSometimesYoungMotherBoysLike HerInconsiderate
Book:My Antonia (EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition)
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“Alexandra sighed. "I have a feeling that if you go away, you will not come back. Something will happen to one of us, or to both. People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find. What I have is yours if you care enough about me to take it.”

PeopleIfsWorldEnoughFeelingsHappensCareLosesThis WorldEasierGoing AwayIf You Care
Book:The Essential Willa Cather Collection
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“They ravaged neither the rivers nor the forest, and if they irrigated, they took as little water as would serve their needs. The land and all that it bore they treated with consideration; not attempting to improve it, they never desecrated it.”

IfsNeedsLittlesWaterLandRiversForestsTreatedConsiderationBoresAttempting
Book:Death Comes for the Archbishop: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition
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“Of course Nebraska is a storehouse of literary material. Everywhere is a storehouse of literary material. If a true artist were born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for his work. The only need is the eye to see.”

IfsNeedsStillsInspirationEyeArtistCoursesBornMaterialsRaisedPlentyTrue ArtistsNebraska
Book:Willa Cather in person: interviews, speeches, and letters
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“Art, it seems to me, should simplify finding what conventions of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the spirit of the whole - so that all that one has suppressed and cut away is there to the reader's consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page.”

IfsShouldArtWholeSeemsFormSpiritCan DoConsciousnessCuttingTypeReaderFindingsPagesDetailsPreservesEditorsConventionsEditingSimplify
Book:Willa Cather On Writing
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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.”

IfsGivingLongHardEnoughHateLosesCreativeFireRiskGiving UpSightGood ThingsContemptBetter Than YouCheap Things
Book:The Essential Willa Cather Collection
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