Quote

If [the writer] achieves anything noble, anything enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely to his material. And this gift of sympathy is his great gift is the fine thing in him that alone can make his work fine.

Willa Cather

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Willa Cather
Age: 73 †
Born: 1873
Born: December 7
Died: 1947
Died: April 24
Author
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Willa Sibert Cather
Giving
Absolutely
Great
Materials
Achieves
Writer
Enduring
Thing
Achieve
Sympathy
Work
Fine
Endure
Make
Alone
Noble
Anything
Material
Must
Gift

More quotes by Willa Cather

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Ah! the terror and the delight of that moment when first we fear ourselves! Until then we have not lived.
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In this world people have to pay an extortionate price for any exceptional gift whatever.
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More than him has done that, said Antonia sadly, and the girls murmured assent.
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Winter lies too long in country towns hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.
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The prayers of all good people are good.
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The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells, and the grass under foot had a reflection of the blue sky in it.
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Personal hatred and family affection are not incompatible they often flourish and grow strong together.
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The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.
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Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.
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Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns and they have to grow up, whether they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting.
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Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world but here the earth was the floor of the sky.
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Success is less interesting than struggle. There is great pleasure in the effort.
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To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent.
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From the time the Englishman's bones harden into bones at all, he makes his skeleton a flagstaff, and he early plants his feet like one who is to walk the world and the decks of all the seas.
Willa Cather
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When people ask me if it has been a hard or easy road, I always answer with the same quotation, the end is nothing, the road is all.Willa Cather
Willa Cather
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I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.
Willa Cather
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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.
Willa Cather
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Loyal? As loyal as anyone who plays second fiddle ever is.
Willa Cather
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It's all very well to tell us to forgive our enemies our enemies can never hurt us very much. But oh, what about forgiving our friends?
Willa Cather
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Dr. Howard Archie had just come up from a game of pool with the Jewish clothier and two traveling men who happened to be staying overnight in Moonstone.
Willa Cather