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

“There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.”

“The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but the first-rate writer can only be experience. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.”

“Avarice, he assured them, was the one passion that grew stronger and sweeter in old age.”

“Any first rate novel or story must have in it the strength of a dozen fairly good stories that have been sacrificed to it. A good workman can't be a cheap workman; he can't be stingy about wasting material, and he cannot compromise. Excerpt taken from On the Art of Fiction by Willa Cather circa 1920.”

“My dear," he sighed when the lights were turned on and they both looked older, "it's been a mistake, our having a family and writing histories and getting middle-aged. We should have been picturesquely shipwrecked together when we were young.”

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