What was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself.
More Quotes from Willa Cather:
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
Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.
Willa Cather
Sometimes I wonder why God ever trusts talent in the hands of women, they usually make such an infernal mess of it. I think He must do it as a sort of ghastly joke.
Willa Cather
There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.
Willa Cather
Men are all right for friends, but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers, even the wild ones. They begin to tell you what's sensible and what's foolish, and want you to stick at home all the time. I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it, and be accountable to nobody.
Willa Cather
One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and hold fast to the days, as to fortune or fame.
Willa Cather
Readers Who Like This Quotation Also Like:
Based on Topics: Art Quotes, Efforts QuotesBased on Keywords: imprison, sheath
For the most part, studio movies have huge budgets. They don't do anything under 30 to 40 million. When you have that much money at stake, you have so many people breathing down your neck.
Penelope Spheeris
Turn off the TV and start digging around for information that's not from a corporation trying to make money.
Iris Dement
I was a precocious reader.
Norman Spinrad