Quotes from book
My Mortal Enemy

My Mortal Enemy
Willa Cather

My Mortal Enemy is the eighth novel by American author Willa Cather. It was first published in 1926.

Willa Cather photo

“I could bear to suffer… so many have suffered. But why must it be like this? I have not deserved it. I have been true in friendship; I have faithfully nursed others in sickness… Why must I die like this, alone with my mortal enemy?”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part II, Ch. 5
My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Willa Cather photo

“In other searchings it might be the object of the quest that brought satisfaction, or it might be something incidental that one got on the way; but in religion, desire was fulfilment, it was the seeking itself that rewarded.”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Willa Cather photo

“Religion is different from everything else; because in religion seeking is finding.”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Willa Cather photo

“Only the stupid and the phlegmatic should teach.”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part II, Ch. 1
My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Willa Cather photo

“People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know. We were… A man and woman draw apart from that long embrace, and see what they have done to each other… In age we lose everything; even the power to love.”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part II, Ch. 4
My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Willa Cather photo

“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.”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part I, Ch. 6
My Mortal Enemy (1926)
Context: Now everything was in ruins. The air was still and cold like the air in a refrigerating-room. What I felt was fear; I was afraid to look or speak or move. Everything about me seemed evil. 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.

Similar authors

Willa Cather photo
Willa Cather99
American writer and novelist 1873–1947
Sinclair Lewis photo
Sinclair Lewis136
American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright None
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald411
American novelist and screenwriter None
Julio Cortázar photo
Julio Cortázar29
Argentinian writer None
William Saroyan photo
William Saroyan190
American writer None
Marcel Proust photo
Marcel Proust41
French novelist, critic, and essayist None
Pearl S. Buck photo
Pearl S. Buck95
American writer None
Christopher Morley photo
Christopher Morley30
American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet None
George Raymond Richard Martin photo
George Raymond Richard Martin35
American writer, screenwriter and television producer None
Amos Oz photo
Amos Oz12
Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual None