1. ““They can’t any of them speak English, except one little girl, and all she can say is ‘we go Black Hawk, Nebraska.’ She’s not much older than you, twelve or thirteen, maybe, and she’s as bright as a new dollar. Don’t you want to go ahead and see her, Jimmy? She’s got pretty brown eyes, too!””

This quote is foreshadowing that refers to the future romance/friendship between Jim and Ántonia.

2. “I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had gone over the edge of it, and were outside man's jurisdiction" (Cather 5).

This quote from the beginning conveys the author's initial tone of how confused the main character, Jim, is about his fate and his "new life," so to speak.

3. “I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness, to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep" (Cather 11).

This passage shows how the author writes about the contentment of those living life to its fullest, and it reinforces the tone of how sometimes it’s the simple things that bring happiness.

4. “In the afternoons, when grandmother sat upstairs darning, or making husking gloves, I read The Swiss Family Robinson aloud to her, and I felt that the Swiss family had no advantages over us in the way of an adventurous life” (Cather 37-38).

This quote helps reinforce that Cather is writing a very romanticized version of the “frontier life,” where the characters feel fairly unburdened. This seems to be a subtle breakage of the fourth wall, where Jim Burden compares himself to fictional characters and sees no important differences.

5. “Whenever I saw her come up the furrow, shouting to her beasts, sunburned, sweaty, her dress open at the neck, and her throat and chest dust-plastered, I used to think of the tone in which poor Mr. Shimerda, who could say so little, yet managed to say so much when he exclaimed, “My Án-tonia!”” (Cather 71).

This passage shows how Jim feels affection towards Ántonia, and he likens it to the emotion-filled tone of her father, who can’t speak much English but still manages to say a lot in few words.