Willa Cather Quotes

A collection of quotes by Willa Cather.

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was an American writer known for her impactful contributions to American literature in the early 20th century. Born in Winchester, Virginia, Cather spent her formative years in Nebraska after her family moved to the prairie when she was nine years old. The stark beauty and struggles of the Midwest would heavily influence her later works.

Cather began her writing career as a journalist, working for various publications before becoming an editor for McClure's magazine in New York City. This experience exposed her to a wide range of literary and cultural influences, strengthening her passion for writing.

She achieved critical acclaim for her novels and short stories that often explored the lives of immigrants and pioneers trying to adapt and find their place in the ever-changing American landscape. Some of Cather's most notable works include "O Pioneers!" (1913), "My Ãntonia" (1918), and "Death Comes for the Archbishop" (1927), which is considered a masterpiece of American literature.

Throughout her career, Cather received numerous awards and accolades, including the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1923 for "One of Ours." Her writing style, characterized by rich descriptions, poignant characterizations, and insightful reflections on the human condition, established her as one of the leading voices of her time.

Willa Cather's profound portrayals of the American experience and her ability to capture the essence of a changing nation continue to resonate with readers today, ensuring her enduring legacy in American literature.

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy only the arti

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

Where there is great love there are always miracles.

Where there is great love there are always miracles.

It does not matter much whom we live with in this world, but

It does not matter much whom we live with in this world, but it matters a great deal whom we dream of.

Great

This mesa plain had an appearance of great antiquity, and of

This mesa plain had an appearance of great antiquity, and of incompleteness; as if, with all the materials for world-making assembled, the Creator had desisted, gone away and left everything on the point of being brought together, on the eve of being arranged into mountain, plain, plateau. The country was still waiting to be made into a landscape.

America

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they

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

Nature

I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.

I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.

Death

Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for wh

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.

Authors & Writing

The irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely b

The irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand.

Talent

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent.

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.

Authors & Writing

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on re

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

Storytelling

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.

Independence

Art, it seems to me, should simplify finding what convention

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.

Authors & Writing

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

Seasons

Nearly all the Escapists in the long past have managed their

Nearly all the Escapists in the long past have managed their own budget and their social relations so unsuccessfully that I wouldn't want them for my landlords, or my bankers, or my neighbors. They were valuable, like powerful stimulants, only when they were left out of the social and industrial routine.

Idealism

The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated a

The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world.

Sunshine

Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for hi

Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man, really; a man uncertain, and puzzled, and in the dark like ourselves.

Neighbors

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refinin

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

Art

Give the people a new word and they think they have a new fa

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

Words

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

Art

The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old

The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.

Generations