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

The irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand.
Willa Cather

The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.
Willa Cather

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

The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world.
Willa Cather

The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.
Willa Cather

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

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

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.
Willa Cather

What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.
Willa Cather

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.
Willa Cather

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.
Willa Cather

Where there is great love, there are always wishes.
Willa Cather

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