In the course of twenty crowded years one parts with many illusions. I did not wish to lose the early ones. Some memories are realities, and are bett… - Willa Cather

Some memories are realities and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

Isn’t it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.

If words had cost money, Tom couldn't have used them more sparingly. The adjectives were purely descriptive, relating to form and colour, and were used to present the objects under consideration, not the young explorer's emotions. Yet through this austerity one felt the kindling imagination, the ardour and excitement of the boy, like the vibration in a voice when the speaker strives to conceal his emotion by using only the conventional phrases.

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