Willa Cather Quotes

If you play Mark Twain and he's not funny, you are definitely not playing Mark Twain. That was the biggest challenge, in some ways. Writing and performing jokes that can come out of that brilliant delivery system he constructed: the friendly, avuncular truth-teller.

Mark Twain cannot be defined.

For someone who made such an enormous contribution to American literature, Mark Twain has been the subject of many books but few major biographies.

Like every child growing up in America, I read 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn.' I liked them well enough, but I didn't love them.

You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' but that ain't no matter. That book was made by a Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly.

It's so wrong when I pick up a new edition of Huckleberry Finn and I look at the last page and it doesn't say, Yours truly, at the end.

Mark Twain is as big as America. He really is.

In the small town of Hannibal, Missouri, when I was a boy, everybody was poor, but didn't know it; and everybody was comfortable and did know it.

Mark Twain is a universe, and he is also a kind of American authority figure. He can say things to America that other people can't say, in a way that can truly be heard.

Mark Twain was an artist working at the highest level. He wrote a book, his masterpiece, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that put America on the world stage for literature. It's almost as if, if you start reading that book as a racist, you cannot finish it and still be a racist.

Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay.

Yves Saint Laurent liked women to put their hands in their pockets, or to hold cigarettes, and act a bit like boys. It was to give an impression of composure, some self-assurance, and to counter the feminine appearance.

Something went klunk. Like a nickel dropping in a soda machine. One of those small insights that explains everything. This was puberty for these boys. Adolescence. The first date, the first kiss, the first chance to hold hands with someone special. Delayed, postponed, a decade's worth of longing--while everybody around you celebrates life, you pretend, suppress, inhibit, deprive yourself of you own joy--but finally ultimately, eventually, you find a place where you can have a taste of everything denied.

I don't know where life will lead me, but I know where I've been. I can't say what life will show me, but I know what I've seen. Tried my hand at love and friendship, but all that is passed and gone. This little boy is moving on.

I suppose even Dictators have their chummy moments, when they put their feet up and relax with the boys, but it was plain from the outset that if Roderick Spode had a sunnier side, he had not come with any idea of exhibiting it now. His manner was curt. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note. ... Here he laid a hand on my shoulder, and I can't remember when I have experienced anything more unpleasant. Apart from what Jeeves would have called the symbolism of the action, he had a grip like the bite of a horse. "Did you say 'Oh yes?'" he asked. "Oh no," I assured him.

[Mark] Twain was a publisher. He published General Grant's Memoirs (a big success) and had a hand in the publishing of many of his own books. He would, I think, be very keen about the question of how a book would sell.

Where nature with accustomed round Sweeps and garnishes the ground With kindly beauty, warm or cold Alternate seasons never old: Heathen, how furiously you rage, Cursing this blood and brimstone age, How furiously against your will You kill and kill again, and kill: All thought of peace behind you cast, Till like small boys with fear aghast, Each cries for God to understand, 'I could not help it, it was my hand.

Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech.

Look, see, learn, become a citizen of Mankind, not just Hannibal, Missouri. That is the message of [Mark] Twain.

I have no friends, I only have accomplices now. On the other hand, my accomplices are more numerous than my friends: they are the human race.

Rough Johnson, the great moralist.

Mr. Scott Fitzgerald deserves a good shaking. Here is an unmistakable talent unashamed of making itself a motley to the view. The Great Gatsby is an absurd story, whether considered as romance, melodrama, or plain record of New York high life.

Shameless is a rough show, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s also beautiful.

My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.