Willa Cather Quotes

There was no one to call me to bed, no one to demand that the rhythms of my life operate in a duet.

Solitude is independence.

The task of the solitary man is to be even more solitary.

You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.

You know, one of my fears about living alone so long is that you get used to doing everything your own way.

I don't belong to anyone.

He who lives in solitude may make his own laws.

The liberty to live for self alone becomes in time a weary bondage.

I need to do things on my own, need to be left alone.

People should just let me be.

I was the youngest and on my own a lot. I think this probably taught me independence and how to be okay with my own company. Also, it meant I read a lot.

Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all. ~Ruby, pg 38

I am completely a loner. In my head I want to feel I can be anywhere. There is a sort of recklessness that being a loner allows me.

If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself.

I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or State, to my circle of friends or even to my own family... Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it,to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shifting foundations.

The price for independence is often isolation and solitude.

Liberty is the possibility of isolation.

I am a drifter, and as lonely as that can be, it is also remarkably freeing. I will never define myself in terms of anyone else.

She would not exchange her solitude for anything. Never again to be forced to move to the rhythms of others.

When you're alone, it's easier," she said a little wistfully. "You can do what you want. You don't have to go home.

To remain alone did not seem to me a terrible fate, no worse than being falsely joined to another person.

But there it is: Everyone is alone, for life, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

For me, a writer should be more like a lighthouse keeper, just out there by himself. He shouldn't get his ideas from other people all around him.

What I was reading was already part of my psyche, but finally someone else was saying it's okay to walk alone.