Old people, who have felt blows and toil and known the world's hard hand, need, even more than children do, a woman's tenderness.
Willa CatherArtistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.
Willa CatherIf [the writer] achieves anything noble, anything enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely to his material. And this gift of sympathy is his great gift; is the fine thing in him that alone can make his work fine.
Willa CatherI've seen it before. There are women who spread ruin through no fault of theirs, just by being too beautiful, too ful of life and love. They can't help it. Poeple come to them as people go to a warm fire in winter.
Willa Cather