Willa Cather

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

"Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is…"

"Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer."

"One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and hold fast to the days, as to fortune o…"

"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 lik…"

"Art and religion have given man the only happiness he has ever had."

"If the street life, not the Whitechapel street life, but that of the common but so-called respectable part of town is in any city more gloomy, more ugly, more grimy, more cruel than in London, I certa…"

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