# My Mortal Enemy

- Author: [Willa Cather](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather.md)
- Quotes: 6
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy

## Quotes

> Only the stupid and the phlegmatic should teach.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy/only-the-stupid.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy/now-everything-was.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy/in-other-searchings.md)

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

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy/religion-is-different.md)

> 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?

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy/i-could-bear.md)

> 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.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/willa-cather/my-mortal-enemy/people-can-be-lovers.md)