Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand — a business as safe and commendable as making soap or break… - Willa Cather

When she went out into the dark kitchen to fix her plants for the night, she used to stand by the window and look out at the white fields, or watch the currents of snow whirling over the orchard. She seemed to feel the weight of all the snow that lay down there. The branches had become so hard that they wounded your hand if you but tried to break a twig. And yet, down under the frozen crusts, at the roots of the trees, the secret of life was still safe, warm as the blood in one's heart; and the spring would come again! Oh, it would come again!

In great misfortunes, people want to be alone. They have a right to be. And the misfortunes that occur within one are the greatest. Surely the saddest thing in the world is falling out of love — if once one has ever fallen in.

Nothing is far and nothing is near, if one desires. The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing — desire. And before it, when it is big, all is little.