When we look back, the only things we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own accord.

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

It is cremated youth. It is all yours--no one gave it to you.

Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement.

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

Nothing mattered ... but writing books, and living the kind of life that made it possible to write them.

Money is a protection, a cloak; it can buy one quiet, and some sort of dignity.