Quotes from Willa Cather

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

Life began for me, when I ceased to admire and began to remember.

We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it - for a little while.

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.

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

Today I stood taller from walking among the trees.

She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last.

Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches.

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

Youth, art, love, dreams, true-heartedness - why must they go out of the summer world into darkness?

How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!

The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify - it was like the light of truth itself.

Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they are in love with somebody.

When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.

Pity is sworn servant unto love: And this be sure, wherever it begin To make the way, it lets your master in.

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

There is only one big thing-desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little.

I tell you, there is no such thing as creative hate!

That is happiness: to be dissolved into something completely great.

I am enjoying to a full that period of reflection which is the happiest conclusion to a life of action.

Love itself draws on a woman nearly all the bad luck in the world

No one can builu her security upon the nobleness of another person.

Art, it seems to me, should simplify.

In this world people have to pay an extortionate price for any exceptional gift whatever.