Willa Cather Quotes

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

And I advise ye to think well, he told her It's better to be a stray dog in this world than a man wi...

Religion is different from everything else because in religion seeking is finding.

Only a Woman, divine, could know all that a woman can suffer.

They ravaged neither the rivers nor the forest, and if they irrigated, they took as little water as ...

One might almost say that an apparition is human vision corrected by divine love. I do not see you a...

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

No one can builu her security upon the nobleness of another person.

Miracles... seem to me to rest not so much upon... healing power coming suddenly near us from afar b...

A crimson fire that vanquishes the stars;A pungent odor from the dusty sage;A sudden stirring of the...

While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flower...

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

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

I am enjoying to a full that period of reflection which is the happiest conclusion to a life of acti...

All the intelligence and talent in the world can't make a singer. The voice is a wild thing. It can'...

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

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

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.

What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is ...

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family but to a solitary and ...

Cavenaugh rubbed his hands together and smiled his sunny smile.'I like that idea. It's reassuring. I...

Some memories are realities and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

Prayers said by good people are always good prayers

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and ...

Art it seems to me should simplify.

O Sacred Heart of Mary!" she murmured by his side, and he felt how that name was food and raiment, f...

It's all very well to tell us to forgive our enemies; our enemies can never hurt us very much. But o...

Don't you feel that at this rate there isn't much in it? In what? In living at all, going on as we d...

I was thinking, as I watched her, how little it mattered-- about her teeth, for instance. I know so ...

As in most families, the mere struggle to have anything of one's own, to be one's self at all, creat...

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if the...

Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fi...

The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the co...

Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the grass about him all the small cre...

He is convinced that the people who might mean something to him will always misjudge him and pass hi...

Most beautiful of all was the tarnished gold of the elms, with a little brown in it, a little bronze...

If words had cost money, Tom couldn't have used them more sparingly. The adjectives were purely desc...

I suppose the test of one's decency is how much of a fight one can put up after one has stopped cari...

But writing is a queer business. If one does anything that is sharp and keep enough to go over the l...

It seems to me that the pleasure one feels in a work of art is just one thing that one does not have...

However much they may smile at her, the old inhabitants would miss Tillie. Her stories give them som...

He knew he would always remember her, standing there with that expectant, forward-looking smile, eno...

He used to say that he never felt the hardness of the human struggle or the sadness of history as he...

The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.

He had never got so much back for himself from any pupil as he did from Miss Kronborg. From the firs...

Her secret? It is every artist's secret--passion. That is all. It is an open secret, and perfectly s...

After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air. Every morning I wakened with a f...

There is only one big thing-desire. And before it when it is big all is little.

Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

Paris is a hard place to leave, even when it rains incessantly and one coughs continually from the d...

What was any art but a mold to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itsel...

I tell you there is no such thing as creative hate!

Where there is great love, there are always wishes.

I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely approach unseen, and leaned my b...

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

There are some things you learn best in calm and some in storm.

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

There was a basic harmony between Antonia and her mistress [Mrs. Harling]. They had strong, independ...

That is happiness to be dissolved into something complete and great.

Pittsburgh was even more vital, more creative, more hungry for culture than New York. Pittsburgh was...

The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify - it was like the light of truth itself. ...

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

I guess everybody thinks about old times, even the happiest people.

Yes, and because we grow old we become more and more the stuff our forbears put into us. I can feel ...

Constant comparisons are the stamp of the foreigner; one continually translates manners and customs ...

Bouchalka was not a reflective person. He had his own idea of what a great prima donna should be lik...

Some memories are realities and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

Sometimes," I ventured, "it doesn't occur to boys that their mother was ever young and pretty. . . I...

It's by understanding me, and the boys, and mother, that you have helped me. I expect that is the on...

I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anyt...

I believe that Gaston Cleric narrowly missed being a great poet, and I have sometimes thought that h...

I only knew the schoolbooks said he "died in the wilderness, of a broken heart.""More than him has d...

As I went back alone over that familiar road, I could almost believe that a boy and girl ran along b...

I slept that night in the room I used to have when I was a little boy, with the summer wind blowing ...

Beautiful surroundings, the society of learned men, the charm of noble women, the graces of art, cou...

Old people, who have felt blows and toil and known the world's hard hand, need, even more than child...

Either a building is part of a place or it is not. Once that kinship is there, time will only make i...

I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, w...

At nine o'clock Mr. Shimerda lighted one of our lanterns and put on his overcoat and fur collar. He ...

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

That is happiness: to be dissolved into something completely great.

As he stood there lost in reflection, Auclair thought he seemed more like a man revolving plans for ...

I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.

Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to ...

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes...

Where there is great love there are always wishes.