In little towns, lives roll along so close to one another; loves and hates beat about, their wings almost touching.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

A soup like this is not the work of one man. It is the result of a constantly refined tradition. There are nearly a thousand years of history in this soup.

When people ask me if it has been a hard or easy road, I always answer with the same quotation, the end is nothing, the road is all.Willa Cather

Setting ... is accident. Either a building is part of a place, or it is not. Once that kinship is there, time will only make it stronger.

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

It does not matter much whom we live with in this world, but it matters a great deal whom we dream of.