Quote #27
What was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose?
More from Willa Cather
- The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do not intrude u…
- When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early you…
- All the intelligence and talent in the world can't make a singer. The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity. It is a sport, …
- If you love the good thing vitally, enough to give up for it all that one must give up, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I …
- Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.
- Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy;…
- Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thi…
- There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the f…