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Willa Cather

Willa Cather Quotes

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Famous Willa Cather Quotes

“If words had cost money, Tom couldn't have used them more sparingly. The adjectives were purely descriptive, relating to form and colour, and were used to present the objects under consideration, not the young explorer's emotions. Yet through this austerity one felt the kindling imagination, the ardour and excitement of the boy, like the vibration in a voice when the speaker strives to conceal his emotion by using only the conventional phrases.”

WritingEmotion
Book:The Professor's House
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“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.”

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Author:Willa Cather
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“The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.”

WritingProcessModernEffectsHigherDrawsPainterNovelistsAccomplishmentDisregardSubordinatesSimplificationUnlearn
Book:Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art
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“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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“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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“Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand - a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods - or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.”

ShouldWritingArtStoriesValuesOughtSafeDemandCraftsSomething NewBreakfastSoapFast FoodIntrinsic ValueCommendableBreakfast Food
Book:Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art
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