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Quote by Willa Cather

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

This book compiles a selection of Willa Cather's early writings, showcasing her development as a writer and her engagement with various literary and cultural topics during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. more

Author

Willa Cather
Willa Cather

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!' more

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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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“No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person. Two people, when they love each other, grow alike in their tastes and habits and pride, but their moral natures (whatever we may mean by that canting expression) are never welded. The base one goes on being base, and the noble one noble, to the end.”

PeopleMayMeanPersonsTwoEndsGrowsMoralSecurityExpressionPrideGoes OnHabitTasteNobleLove Each Other
Book:The Best of Willa Cather
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“Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there - that, one might say, is created. It is the inexplicable presence of the thing not named, of the overtone divined by the ear but not heard by it, the verbal mood, the emotional aura of the fact or the thing or the deed, that gives high quality to the novel or the drama, as well as to poetry itself.”

GivingWellsFactsMightFeltQualityNovelHeardEmotionalDramaPagesEarsDeedsMoodAurasInexplicableHigh Quality
Book:Not Under Forty
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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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“There is a popular superstition that "realism" asserts itself in the cataloguing of a great number of material objects, in explaining mechanical processes, the methods of operating manufactories and trades, and in minutely and unsparingly describing physical sensations. But is not realism, more than it is anything else, an attitude of mind on the part of the writer toward his material, a vague indication of the sympathy and candour with which he accepts, rather than chooses, his theme?”

MindProcessNumbersAttitudeAcceptingObjectsMaterialsMethodTradeThemeSensationsSuperstitionsRealismVagueExplainingDescribingIndicationCandour
Book:Not Under Forty
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“Every artist knows that there is no such thing as "freedom" in art. The first thing an artist does when he begins a new work is to lay down the barriers and limitations; he decides upon a certain composition, a certain key, a certain relation of creatures or objects to each other. He is never free, and the more splendid his imagination, the more intense his feeling, the farther he goes from general truth and general emotion.”

KnowsFirstsDoeArtFeelingsArtistCertainImaginationEmotionObjectsKeysCreaturesRelationLaysIntenseLimitationBarriersCompositionSplendidNew WorkDecide Upon
Book:Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art
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“Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all - no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself - a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.”

PeopleBelieveArtMatterEyeGamesArt IsEarsExcitingNo Matter WhatProductionsPsychologicalConcreteDelightfulMake BelieveSociologicalChildish Things
Book:Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art
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