Willa Cather Quotes about Writing

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Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations

Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.

Willa Cather

Art, Spring, Writing

Willa Cather (1990). “Willa Cather in Person: Interviews, Speeches, and Letters”, p.47, U of Nebraska Press

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

Willa Cather

Writing, Age, Fifteen

Quoted in Rene¤ Rapin Willa Cather (1930).

The test of one's decency is how much of a fight one can put up after one has stopped caring, and after one has found out that one can never please the people they wanted to please.

Willa Cather

Writing, Fighting, Caring

Willa Cather (2013). “The Selected Letters of Willa Cather”, p.224, Vintage

It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.

Willa Cather

Real, Book, Writing

I don't want anyone reading my writing to think about style. I just want them to be in the story.

Willa Cather

Book, Reading, Writing

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

Lying, Writing, Character

Willa Cather (1988). “Not Under Forty”, p.81, U of Nebraska Press

Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand - a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods - or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.

Willa Cather

Art, Writing, Breakfast Food

Willa Cather (1988). “Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art”, p.103, U of Nebraska Press

Your vivid, exciting companionship in the office must not be your audience, you must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world.

Willa Cather

Writing, Office, World

Willa Cather (1970). “Collected Short Fiction, 1892-1912”, p.24, U of Nebraska Press

Nothing mattered ... but writing books, and living the kind of life that made it possible to write them.

Willa Cather

Book, Writing, Kind

Willa Cather (1954). “My Antonia”

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

Writing, Years, Perfect

Willa Cather (1970). “Collected Short Fiction, 1892-1912”, p.24, U of Nebraska Press

Pittsburgh was even more vital, more creative, more hungry for culture than New York. Pittsburgh was the birthplace of my writing.

Willa Cather

New York, Writing, Creative

I have not much faith in women in fiction.... Women are so horribly subjective and they have such scorn for the healthy commonplace. When a woman writes a story of adventure, a stout sea tale, a manly battle yarn, anything without wine, women, and love, then I will begin to hope for something great from them, not before.

Willa Cather

Women, Writing, Wine

Willa Cather (1993). “Willa Cather”

The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.

Willa Cather

Writing, Accomplishment, Novelists

Willa Cather (1988). “Willa Cather on Writing: Critical Studies on Writing as an Art”, p.40, U of Nebraska Press