“Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire.”
Part I, Ch. 11
The Song of the Lark (1915)
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Willa Cather 99
American writer and novelist 1873–1947Related quotes

Der Künstler darf eben so wenig herrschen als dienen wollen. 15 Er kann nur bilden, nichts als bilden, für den Staat also nur das thun, dass er Herrscher und Diener bilde, dass er Politiker und Oekonomen zu Künstlern erhebe.
“Ideas,” Lucinde and the Fragments, P. Firchow, trans. (1991), § 54

“What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired.”
Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 5 : 'Sex', p. 157
Context: The books and films they see survey from the young boy's point of view his first touch of a girl's thighs, his first glimpse of her breasts. The girls sit listening, absorbing, their familiar breasts estranged as if they were not part of their bodies, their thighs crossed self-consciously, learning how to leave their bodies and watch them from the outside. Since their bodies are seen from the point of view of strangeness and desire, it is no wonder that what should be familiar, felt to be whole, becomes estranged and divided into parts. What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired. Girls learn to watch their sex along with the boys; that takes up the space that should be devoted to finding out about what they are wanting, and reading and writing about it, seeking it and getting it.

“Life is full of little surprises.
Time travel is full of big ones.”
Source: The Man Who Folded Himself (1973), p. 46

“It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”