It was only one splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it was a losing game in the end, it se… - Willa Cather

The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.

There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.