Yes, and because we grow old we become more and more the stuff our forbears put into us. I can feel his savagery strengthen in me. We think we are so individual and so misunderstood when we are young; but the nature our strain of blood carries is inside there, waiting, like our skeleton.
Willa CatherSetting ... 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.
Willa CatherA creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.
Willa CatherSo long as a novelist works selfishly for the pleasure of creating character and situation corresponding to his own illusions, ideals and intuitions, he will always produce something worth while and natural. Directly he takes himself too seriously and begins for the alleged benefit of humanity an elaborate dissection of complexes, he evolves a book that is more ridiculous and tiresome than the most conventional cold cream girl novel of yesterday.
Willa Cather