“My familiar spirit is like an old wild turkey that forsakes a feeding ground as soon as it sees tracks of people-especially if the people are readers, book-buyers. It's a crafty bird and it wants to go where there aint no readers That's the truth: they go and paw a place all up and spoil it for me. It isn't my secret anymore.”

— Willa Cather

Letter to Dorothy Canfield Fisher (27 February 1924), published in The Selected Letters of Willa Cather (2013), edited by Andrew Jewell and Janis Stout

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "My familiar spirit is like an old wild turkey that forsakes a feeding ground as soon as it sees tracks of people-especi…" by Willa Cather?

Willa Cather 99

American writer and novelist 1873–1947

Related quotes

“For all the invisible girls and for my readers, for seeing me”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

“The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. That's why we go to movies and say, "Oh, the book is better.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“When I appear in public, people expect me to neigh, grind my teeth, paw the ground, and swish my tail.”

Anne, Princess Royal (1950) daughter of Elizabeth II

Susan Ratcliffe (2010) Oxford Dictionary of Quotations by Subject. p. 411: On her "horsey" reputation

“[On his process for writing novels:] I can't imagine what the first sentence is, I can't imagine where I want the reader to enter the story, if I don't know where the reader is going to leave the story. So once I know what the last thing the reader hears is, I can work my way backward, like following a roadmap in reverse.”

John Irving (1942) American novelist and screenwriter

A modern novelist of Dickensian tradition, Spotlight, Russia Today, January 24, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ost0Gyl2V1I,

“I’m not sure what I’ll do, but— well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ice Palace and Other Stories

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for a writer to psychoanalyze herself or try to explain why she writes what she writes—it’s a reductive way of looking at oneself and one’s work. Readers really participate in the writing of a book. As a writer I’m giving the reader signs to help create the story with me. The reader is bringing his or her own memories, intelligence, preconceptions, prejudices, likes, dislikes. So the characters in your copy of the book are going to look and sound different than in mine. I have my own ideas, but once the book is out there it’s not really mine anymore, and my own idea isn’t any more valid than yours. And then I begin the long process of disengaging.”

Donna Tartt (1963) American writer

On how writers should avoid analyzing their own work in “Donna Tartt on The Goldfinch, Inspiration, and the Perils of Literary Fame” https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a29022016/donna-tartt-goldfinch-interview/ in Town & Country (2019 Sep 12)

“Turkeys are intelligent, social, curious, and sometimes even funny. I wish people were more like turkeys sometimes. … We're going to have a special celebration for turkeys this November, where we're going to hang out with turkeys, we're not going to eat them, we're just going to kind of chill, hang out, talk with the turkeys, eat a little veggies.”

Biz Stone (1974) American blogger; co-founder of Twitter

“Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone talks about turkeys and Farm Sanctuary” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmemxjLriUI, ad for Farm Sanctuary (18 October 2011), reported in “Twitter founder Biz Stone likes turkeys, wishes people were more like them” https://venturebeat.com/2011/11/12/biz-stone-likes-turkeys/, in VentureBeat.com (12 November 2011).

“Death is like my car. It takes me where I want to go.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

“When I die, I want people to play my music, go wild and freak out and do anything they want to do.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

“People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that somewhere was like.”

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 11, Writing About Places: The Travel Article, p. 80.

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Willa Cather 99

Related quotes

Related topics