Willa Cather

"More than him has done that," said Antonia sadly, and the girls murmured assent.

— Willa Cather

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

— Willa Cather

“It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious.”

— Willa Cather

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fact.

— Willa Cather

“The old man smiled. 'I shall not die of a cold, my son. I shall die of having lived.”

— Willa Cather

You must not begin to fret about the successes of cheap people. After all, what have they to do with you?

— Willa Cather

“As long as there is one house there must be one hand.”

— Willa Cather

The heart, when it is too much alive, aches for that brown earth, and ecstasy has no fear of death.

— Willa Cather

One afternoon late in October of the year 1697, Euclide Auclair, the philosopher apothecary of Quebec, stood on the top of Cap…

— Willa Cather

“When I’m in normal health, I’m a Presbyterian, but just now I feel that even the wicked get worse than they deserve.”

— Willa Cather

The two friends stood for a few moments on the windy street corner, not speaking a word, as two travelers, who have…

— Willa Cather

Pittsburgh was even more vital, more creative, more hungry for culture than New York. Pittsburgh was the birthplace of my writing.

— Willa Cather

When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which…

— Willa Cather

Beautiful women, whose beauty meant more than it said... was their brilliancy always fed by something coarse and concealed? Was that their…

— Willa Cather

“He was entirely rid of his nervous misgivings, of his forced aggressiveness, of the imperative desire to show himself different from his…

— Willa Cather

“The grudge was fundamental. Perhaps he could not have given it up if he tried. Perhaps he got more satisfaction out of…

— Willa Cather

If [the writer] achieves anything noble, anything enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely to his material. And this gift of…

— Willa Cather

“As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of…

— Willa Cather

For ever and anon the soul becomes weary of the conventions that are not of it, and with a single stroke shatters…

— Willa Cather

“The forest rose about this open glade like an amphitheatre, in golden terraces of horsechestnut and beech. The big nuts dropped velvety…

— Willa Cather

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as…

— Willa Cather

Nearly all the Escapists in the long past have managed their own budget and their social relations so unsuccessfully that I wouldn't…

— Willa Cather

There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road,…

— Willa Cather

Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows…

— Willa Cather

“There is something frank and joyous and young in the open face of the country. It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods…

— Willa Cather

“LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good…

— Willa Cather

“Under his buckskin riding-coat he wore a black vest and the cravat and collar of a churchman. A young priest, at his…

— Willa Cather

“The Bergson boys, certainly, would have been happier with their uncle Otto, in the bakery shop in Chicago. Like most of their…

— Willa Cather

“Enid was meant for him and she had come for him; he would never let her go. She should never know how…

— Willa Cather

“She clapped her hands and murmured, "Blue sky, blue eyes," as if it amused her. While we snuggled down there out of…

— Willa Cather

Let people go on talking as they like, and we will go on living as we think best.

— Willa Cather

“Miracles surround us at every turn, if we but sharpen our perceptions to them.”

— Willa Cather

Life began for me, when I ceased to admire and began to remember.

— Willa Cather

“It was to him a very strange and perplexing place, where people wore fine clothes and had hard hearts.”

— Willa Cather

The sincerity of feeling that is possible between a writer and a reader is one of the finest things I know.

— Willa Cather

In this world people have to pay an extortionate price for any exceptional gift whatever.

— Willa Cather

Too much detail is apt, like any other form of extravagance, to become slightly vulgar.

— Willa Cather

If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry

— Willa Cather

“Poor soul, poor soul!' grandmother groaned. 'I'd like to think”

— Willa Cather

People always think the bread of another country is better than their own.

— Willa Cather