Willa Cather

I tell you there is such a thing as creative hate!

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

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

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

She used to drag her mattress beside her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating with excitement, as a machine vibrates from speed. Life rushed in upon her through that window - or so it seemed. In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from without. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that is was not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardor and anticipation.

The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.

Money is a protection, a cloak; it can buy one quiet, and some sort of dignity.

When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them.

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

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

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

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

That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.

Where there is great love there are always miracles.