Quotes: Frontier

The idea in bold-face print is a summary of the quote. The number after the topic is the page on which the quote was found.

Frontier
Frontier 7 "I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had got over the edge of it, and were outside man’s jurisdiction." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 66 "Next to getting warm and keeping warm, dinner and supper were the most interesting things we had to think about...and the return of the men at nightfall." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 78 "They’re wanting in everything and most of all in horse-sense; nobody can give ’em that." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 86 "..and we sat about the stove, enjoying the deepening gray of the winter afternoon and the atmosphere of comfort and security in my grandfather’s house." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 86 "I suppose, in the crowded clutter of their cave, the old man [Mr. Shimerda] had come to believe that peace and order had vanished from the earth, or existed only in the old world he had left so far behind." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 93 "By five o’clock the chores were done--just when it was time to begin them all over again." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 196 "At last there was something to do in those long, empty summer evenings, when the married people sat like images on their front porches, and the boys and girls tramped and tramped the board sidewalks--northward to the edge of the open prairie, south to the depot, then back again to the post-office, the ice-cream parlor, the butcher shop." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 198 The girls in the early years who laid the groundwork for those who came later learned from their mothers and grandmothers, sacrificed for the generation that came after, the generation that did not appreciate what the earlier girls had done for them. "Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had got little schooling themselves; but the younger brothers and sisters, for whom they made such sacrifices and who have had ‘advantages,’ never seem to me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated...older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Ántonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier 209 "In every frontier settlement there are men who have come there to escape restraint." Cather, My Ántonia

Frontier xi "…the grim reality of pioneering." Lincoln Colcord, “Introduction.” Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 6 "…their course was always the same—straight toward the west, straight toward the skyline." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 16 It was a matter of life and death to find the trail--soon! "The only thing he felt sure of was that he wasn’t on the right track; otherwise, he would have come across the traces of their camps…getting to be a matter of life and death…to find the trail—and find it soon." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 16 The inexperienced newcomer on the frontier. "But here was he, the newcomer, who owned nothing and knew nothing, groping about with his dear ones in the endless wilderness." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 29 "How will human beings be able to endure this place [the endless prairie]…there isn’t even a thing that one can hide behind." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 32 "No one put the thought into words, but they all felt it strongly; now they had gone back to the very beginning of things…." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 32 "They were so far from the world…cut off from the haunts of their fellow beings…so terribly far." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 32 The battle against depression. "The faces that gazed into one another were sober now, as silence claimed the little company; but lines of strength and determination on nearly every countenance told of an inward resolve to keep the mood of depression from gaining full control." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 36 "All the while, the thought that had struck her yesterday when she first got down from the wagon, stood vividly before her mind: here there was nothing even to hide behind." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 37 "Could no living thing exist out here, in the empty, desolate, endless wastes of green and blue?" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 37 "If life is to thrive and endure, it must at least have something to hide behind." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 38 The mood of depression. "She threw herself back in the grass and looked up into the heavens; but darkness and infinitude lay there also." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 39 The experience of the frontier. "But it had been as if a resistless flood had torn them loose from their foundations and was carrying them helplessly along on its current—flinging them here and there, hurling them madly onward, with no known destination ahead." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 41 "…her nerves were taut as bowstrings; her head kept rising up from the pillow to listen—but there was nothing to hear, except the night wind, which now had begun to stir…it stirred so many unknown things." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 42 Beret: "Oh, Per, it’s only this—I’m so afraid out here…it’s all so big and open…so empty." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 98 The feeling of living on the frontier. "It seemed plain to her now that human life could not endure in this country…not a settled habitation of man lay nearer than several days’ journey; if any visitor came, it was a savage, a wild man, whom one must fear…to get what supplies they needed they must journey four whole days, and make preparations as if for a voyage…what would happen if something sudden should befall them…attack, sickness, or fire…yes, what would they do?" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 125 The people kept coming--and going, west. "Seventy miles farther into the evening glow these fellows were going—seventy long miles…this place would no longer be life’s last outpost…folks were coming, were passing on…folks who intended to build homes." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 127 "To Beret the visit had seemed nothing but a brief interruption to the endless solitude." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 135 The effects of nationality on the frontier. "…the idea of chasing people [Germans, Irish] away from a place that was nearly destitute of human beings already seemed comical." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 137 "The government is all right in its place—no one questions that…out here this morning, the government is a little too far away…." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 182 The greatest fear on the frontier. "…he, too, ought to be able to see by this time that they would all become wild beasts if they remained here much longer." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 220 The impoverished and the unhappy in civilization were now on the loose on the frontier. "Now she saw it clearly: here on the trackless plain, the thousand-year-old hunger of the poor after human happiness had been unloosed!" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 221 She was married to him, but she could never be like him in his hopeful attitude toward living on the frontier. "She had bound herself inseparably to this man; now she was but a hindrance to him…she was only in his way…but that he could not understand…could not fathom the source of her trouble; that seemed incomprehensible to her; didn’t he realize that she could never be like him…no one in all the world was like him…how could she be?" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 228 Beret: "Human beings cannot exist here…they grow into beasts…." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 250 "…the school bound subtly and inseparably together the few souls who lived out there in the wilderness." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 252 "Problems in arithmetic always had to be worked out mentally, on account of the lack of writing materials." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 274 The monotony of the frontier. "It was a terrible, hopeless day out of doors…and all the days were alike." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 274 "Under the strain of this winter the courage of the men was slowly ebbing away." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 286 Per Hansa's vision of the future on the frontier. "Here he sat playing with the good fairies [grains of wheat] that had the power to create a new life over this Endless Wilderness, and transform it into a habitable land for human beings." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 287 The promise of kernels of wheat. "His wonder grew as he gazed at the kernels; there they lay, so inanimate, yet so plump and heavy, glowing with smoldering flame…as if each kernel had light within it—life now asleep…seemed to be charged with a delicate life that was seeking release." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 289 "He felt profoundly that the greatest moment in his life had come…he was about to sow wheat on his own ground." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 314 "The sense of home, of people who lived in an orderly fashion, swept over her like a warm bath." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 321 Beret's experience of life on the frontier. "…here she sat, thousands of miles from home and kindred, lost in a limitless void." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 328 "Now he was binding his own wheat, his hands oily with the sap of the new-cut stems; a fine oil it was, too—he rubbed his hands together and felt a sensuous pleasure welling up within him; his body seemed to grow a little with every bundle he tied." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 363 The frontier was not for those whom the Lord had given a sad heart. "Here was the endless prairie, so rich in its blessings of fertility, but also full of a great loneliness—a form of freedom which curiously affected the minds of strangers, especially those to whom the Lord had given a sad heart." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 375 Per Hansa: "There are some people, I know now, who never should emigrate, because, you see, they can’t take pleasure in that which is to come—they simply can’t see it!" Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 413 Solitude is not for everyone. "…the strange spell of sadness which the unbroken solitude cast upon the minds of some." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 413 The effects of living on the frontier. "Many took their own lives; asylum after asylum was filled with disordered beings who had once been human." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 413 On the prairie. "It is hard for the eye to wander from sky line to sky line, year in and year out, without finding a resting place." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 414 The dangers of nature on the frontier. "And on the hot summer days terrible storms might come; in the twinkling of an eye they would smash to splinters the habitations which man had built for himself…." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth.

Frontier 416 The cycle of misery on the frontier. "In the late spring, when all this snow had to thaw, the floods would come." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth

Frontier 453 Per Hansa--dead, broken but hopeful man. "To the boys it looked as though the man were sitting there resting while he waited for better skiing…his face was ashen and drawn…his eyes were set toward the west." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth