Imagination, which is a quality writers must have, does not mean the ability to weave pretty stories out of nothing. In the right sense, imagination is a response to what is going on — a sensitiveness to which outside things appeal. It is a composition of sympathy and observation.

Willa Cather

Categorized in : Mean Imagination Quality

Success is never so interesting as struggle by Willa Cather

Success is never so interesting as struggle

giving-up struggle success

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm. by Willa Cather

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

nature summer inspirational

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.

kindness inspirational people

Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth wa... by Willa Cather

Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.

earth sky world

Miracles surround us at every turn if we but sharpen our percepti... by Willa Cather

Miracles surround us at every turn if we but sharpen our perceptions of them.

turns miracle perception

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.

lucky happiness world

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pop... by Willa Cather

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

girl ambition facts

It takes a great deal of experience to become natural. by Willa Cather

It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.

deals natural

Some things are best learned in calm, others in storm. by Willa Cather

Some things are best learned in calm, others in storm.

calm storm

The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic.

broken grace prayer

The end is nothing; the road is all. by Willa Cather

The end is nothing; the road is all.

ends life

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and gr... by Willa Cather

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.

purpose spiritual happiness

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

niece wise life

The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was sti... by Willa Cather

The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska.

nebraska states long

Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better thi... by Willa Cather

Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.

faster knows men

The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me. In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions... I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen again.

memories reality years

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.

breakfast-food writing art

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.

fighting caring writing

Even the wicked get worse than they deserve. by Willa Cather

Even the wicked get worse than they deserve.

punishment wicked fate

The land belongs to the future. by Willa Cather

The land belongs to the future.

land