Willa Cather

“Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.”

“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.”

“Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.”

“Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement.”

“The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.”

“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”