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Willa Cather Quotes

Author

American author known for her depictions of the American Midwest. Cather's works often feature female protagonists, showcasing their resilience and growth in challenging environments. Her notable works include 'My Ántonia' and 'O Pioneers!'

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Famous Willa Cather Quotes

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

People World Loses This World Easier

Book:The Best of Willa Cather

Source: The Best of Willa Cather

“Ugly accidents happen . . . always have and always will. But the failures are swept back into the pile and forgotten. They don`t leave any lasting scar in the world, and they don`t affect the future. The things that last are the good things. The people who forge ahead and do something, they really count.”

People World Happens Lasts Good Things Forgotten Ugly Accidents Lasting Scar Accidents Happen

Book:The Song of the Lark

Source: The Song of the Lark

“The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech - it is a gift from heart to heart.”

Thinking World Way Feels Heart Able Language Community Attitude Accepting Speech Characteristics Comment Finest Notebook Idiom Heart To Heart Accepting Life

Book:Not Under Forty

Source: Not Under Forty

“The world is always full of brilliant youth which fades into grey and embittered middle age: the first flowering takes everything. The great men are those who have developed slowly, or who have been able to survive the glamour of their early florescence and to go on learning from life.”

Men World Firsts Has Beens Age Able Middle Youth Goes On Brilliant Great Men Fades Grey Middle Ages Glamour Flowering

Book:Not Under Forty

Source: Not Under Forty

“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.”

“Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”

World Earth Sky Elsewhere Roof

Book:Death Comes for the Archbishop

Source: Death Comes for the Archbishop

“Youth, art, love, dreams, true-heartedness - why must they go out of the summer world into darkness?”

World Art Dream Loss Darkness Youth Summer Art Love

Book:Uncle Valentine and Other Stories: Willa Cather's Uncollected Short Fiction, 1915-1929

Source: Uncle Valentine and Other Stories: Willa Cather's Uncollected Short Fiction, 1915-1929

“The summer moon hung full in the sky. For the time being it was the great fact of the world.”

World Facts Sky Moon Summer Hung

Book:The Best of Willa Cather

Source: The Best of Willa Cather

“From the time the Englishman's bones harden into bones at all, he makes his skeleton a flagstaff, and he early plants his feet like one who is to walk the world and the decks of all the seas.”

World Walks Sea Feet England Plant Bones Englishmen Deck Skeletons

Book:The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902

Source: The World and the Parish: Willa Cather's Articles and Reviews, 1893-1902

“Your vivid, exciting companionship in the office must not be your audience, you must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world.”

World Writing Audience Quiet Office Exciting Companionship Vivid

Book:Collected Short Fiction, 1892-1912

Source: Collected Short Fiction, 1892-1912

“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.”

Source: 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…

“One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and hold fast to the days.”

World Ends Happiness Hours Chance Conditions Divine Lucky Forecasts Hold Fast Stumble Upon

Author:Willa Cather

“Love itself draws on a woman nearly all the bad luck in the world”

World Draws Luck Bad Luck

Book:My Mortal Enemy

Source: My Mortal Enemy

“In great misfortunes, people want to be alone. They have a right to be. And the misfortunes that occur within one are the greatest. Surely the saddest thing in the world is falling out of love--if once one has ever fallen in.”

People Ifs World Want Fall Falling In Love Fallen Misfortunes Saddest Wants To Be Alone

Book:The Professor's House

Source: The Professor's House

“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.”