Willa Cather

"The professor had an irritating way of glancing at his watch."

"Accidents happen to the careless, but design happens to the intentional."

"The kingdom of art is on the side of those who feel most, not on the side of those who think best."

"The qualities that make a man act in bad faith are not confined to any social class."

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

"The important thing is that we are coming nearer and nearer to the truth."

"A man cannot make a place for himself in the world without some friendships."

"The sun shone hot on the climbing path and the shadows of the pinyons were sharp and clean."

"No one person can judge another, only the sum of all persons can do that."

"In any group of people assembled together, the right to the floor is what matters."

"The condition every art requires is not so much freedom from restriction as truth to material."

"I wanted to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience."

"The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions."

"A pioneer must love the land before the land will make him rich."

"Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, there is where I belong."

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

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends."

"The higher processes are all processes of simplification."

"I have walked in that long procession on Fifth Avenue toward St. Patrick's Cathedral."

"One must have imagination to realize what one may do, or what one might have done."

"The snobbery of the wealthy person is in assuming that everyone has had the same advantages."

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

"The revolt against individualism naturally calls artists severely to account."

"An artist should be moved by nothing but the desire to do his work well."

"The most merciless of all judgments are those uttered in the voice of enthusiasm."

"What a waste it all is, to be sure—but that is the condition of being young."

"The great fact about Americans is that they are always going."

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

"The world is always going to misunderstand the artist."

"If we never arrived anywhere, it did not matter. But we certainly enjoyed the ride."