The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom…

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.

Sourced, Willa Cather on Writing (1949)

“Four Letters: Escapism” (1936)

Other Willa Cather Quotes

Perhaps I am like Carrie Jensen, the sister of one of my hired men. She had never been out of the cornfields, and a few years ago she got despondent and said life was just the same thing over and over, and she didn’t see the use of it. After she had tried to kill herself once or twice, her folks got worried and sent her over to Iowa to visit some relations. Ever since she’s come back she’s been perfectly cheerful, and she says she’s contented to live and work in a world that’s so big and interesting. She said that anything as big as the bridges over the Platte and the Missouri reconciled her. And it’s what goes on in the world that reconciles me. - View Quote Details on Perhaps I am like Carrie Jensen, the sister of one…
The “sayings” of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech — it is a gift from heart to heart. - View Quote Details on The “sayings” of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic…
Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening. - View Quote Details on Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the…
The world is always full of brilliant youth which fades into grey and embittered middle age: the first flowering takes everything. The great men are those who have developed slowly, or who have been able to survive the glamour of their early florescence and to go on learning from life. - View Quote Details on The world is always full of brilliant youth which fades…
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 faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. - View Quote Details on There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no…
I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. - View Quote Details on I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I…
The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own. - View Quote Details on The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no…
I tell you there is no such thing as creative hate! - View Quote Details on I tell you there is no such thing as creative…
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 youth, undirected, and of its own accord. - View Quote Details on When we look back, the only things we cherish are…
Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another — secret and passionate and intense — which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him. - View Quote Details on Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the…