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If you don't keep and guard and mature your force, and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than you did five years ago.

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
Much
Quiet
Years
Five
Things
Perfect
Time
Force
Keep
Better
Writing
Guard
Work
Mature

More quotes by Willa Cather

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There was nothing but land not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.
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The great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes.
Willa Cather
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Pittsburgh was even more vital, more creative, more hungry for culture than New York. Pittsburgh was the birthplace of my writing.
Willa Cather
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Thirty or forty years ago, in one those grey towns along the Burlington railroad which are so much greyer to-day than they were then, there was a house well know from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for a certain charm of atmosphere.
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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.
Willa Cather
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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.
Willa Cather
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Sometimes I wonder why God ever trusts talent in the hands of women, they usually make such an infernal mess of it. I think He must do it as a sort of ghastly joke.
Willa Cather
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The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little before we begin to discern.
Willa Cather
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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.
Willa Cather
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Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.
Willa Cather
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There was only - spring itself, the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere in the sky, in the swift clouds, in the pale sunshine, and in the warm high wind - rising suddenly, sinking suddenly, impulsive ... If I had been tossed down blindfold on that red prairie, I should have known that it was spring.
Willa Cather
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I ain't got time to learn. I can work like mans now.
Willa Cather
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Money is a protection, a cloak it can buy one quiet, and some sort of dignity.
Willa Cather
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I wondered if the life that was right for one was ever right for two!
Willa Cather
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A burnt dog dreads the fire.
Willa Cather
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Too much information is rather deadening.
Willa Cather
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One may have staunch friends in one's own family, but one seldom has admirers.
Willa Cather
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A creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.
Willa Cather
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Personal hatred and family affection are not incompatible they often flourish and grow strong together.
Willa Cather
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To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent.
Willa Cather