It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and…

It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.

Sourced, My Antonia
(1918)

Book V, Ch. 1

Other Willa Cather Quotes

I am sure I do not know why the beauty of Monte Carlo should not satisfy more than it does. The bluest of all seas is nowhere bluer than when you see it between the marble balustrades of the long white terrace before the casino, palms are nowhere greener than in that high garden which the mountain screen from every unkind breath, no colours could be more rich and various than those of the red and purple Alps that tower up behind the town, on whose summit such violent thunderstorms gather and break. But for me, at least, there was not at all the pleasure I had anticipated in this dazzling white and blue, these feathery palms and ragged Alps….I had a continual restless feeling that there was nothing at all real about Monte Carlo; that the sea was too blue to be wet, the casino too white to be anything but pasteboard, and that from their very greenness the palms must be cotton…. in atmosphere and spirit the entire kingdom of Monaco is an extension of the casino. - View Quote Details on I am sure I do not know why the beauty…
We were at last in Monte Cristo’s country, fairly into the country of the fabulous, where extravagance ceases to exist because everything is extravagant, and where the wildest dreams come true. - View Quote Details on We were at last in Monte Cristo’s country, fairly into…
Now everything was in ruins. The air was still and cold like the air in a refrigerating-room. What I felt was fear; I was afraid to look or speak or move. Everything about me seemed evil. When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless. - View Quote Details on Now everything was in ruins. The air was still and…
The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still, — and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world. The plain was there, under one’s feet, but what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere ant-hills under it. Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky. The landscape one longed for when one was away, the thing all about one, the world one actually lived in, was the sky, the sky! - View Quote Details on The sky was as full of motion and change as…
Of course it [football] is brutal. So is Homer brutal, and Tolstoi. - View Quote Details on Of course it [football] is brutal. So is Homer brutal,…
The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman. - View Quote Details on The history of every country begins in the heart of…
As I confronted her, the changes grew less apparent to me, her identity stronger. She was there, in the full vigour of her personality, battered but not diminished, looking at me, speaking to me in the husky, breathy voice I remembered so well. - View Quote Details on As I confronted her, the changes grew less apparent to…
Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement. - View Quote Details on Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process…
Religion is different from everything else; because in religion seeking is finding. - View Quote Details on Religion is different from everything else; because in religion seeking…
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. (16 September 1902) - View Quote Details on From the time the Englishman’s bones harden into bones at…