491 Quotes by Willa Cather

This land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces.

On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men's affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice.

If the street life, not the Whitechapel street life, but that of the common but so-called respectable part of town is in any city more gloomy, more ugly, more grimy, more cruel than in London, I certainly don't care to see it. Sometimes it occurs to one that possibly all the failures of this generation, the world over, have been suddenly swept into London, for the streets are a restless, breathing, malodorous pageant of the seedy of all nations.

One may have staunch friends in one's own family, but one seldom has admirers.

Personal hatred and family affection are not incompatible; they often flourish and grow strong together.

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person. Two people, when they love each other, grow alike in their tastes and habits and pride, but their moral natures (whatever we may mean by that canting expression) are never welded. The base one goes on being base, and the noble one noble, to the end.

Loyal? As loyal as anyone who plays second fiddle ever is.

[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.

Merely having seen the season change in a country gave one the sense of having been there for a long time.