Willa Cather Quotes
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Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.
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It does not matter much whom we live with in this world, but it matters a great deal whom we dream of.
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Old people, who have felt blows and toil and known the world's hard hand, need, even more than children do, a woman's tenderness.
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In a few hours one could cover that incalculable distance; from the winter country and homely neighbours, to the city where the air trembled like a tuning-fork with unimaginable possibilities.
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He domesticated and developed the native wild flowers. He had one hill-side solidly clad with that low-growing purple verbena which mats over the hills of New Mexico. It was like a great violet velvet mantle thrown down in the sun; all the shades that the dyers and weavers of Italy and France strove for through centuries, the violet that is full of rose colour and is yet not lavender; the blue that becomes almost pink and then retreats again into sea-dark purple—the true Episcopal colour and countless variations of it.
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Pity is sworn servant unto love: And this be sure, wherever it begin To make the way, it lets your master in.
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The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.
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One summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome.
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Prayers said by good people are always good prayers
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That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.
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The revolt against individualism naturally calls artists severely to account, because the artist is of all men the most individual; those who were not have been long forgotten.
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The end is nothing; the road is all.
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The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.
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I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now.
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[Dawn] is always such a forgiving time. When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it's as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution.
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But she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.
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She had certain thoughts which were like companions, ideas which were like older and wiser friends.
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There is something frank and joyous and young in the open face of the country. It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods of the season, holding nothing back.
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The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify - it was like the light of truth itself.
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Every artist makes herself born. You must bring the artist into the world yourself.
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If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry
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Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.
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Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches.
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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.