Thornton Wilder Quotes About Children

Quotes about: Children

• I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them--it was that promise.

  Thornton Wilder

  Marriage, Children, Growing Up

• Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back.

  Thornton Wilder

  Children, Heart, Angel

• Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

  Thornton Wilder

  Love, Heartbreak, Dog

  Thornton Wilder (2009). “The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels, 1926-1948”

• Nature reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests.

  Thornton Wilder

  Nature, Children, Scary

  Thornton Wilder (2009). “The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels, 1926-1948”

• The planting of trees is the least self-centered of all that we can do. It is a purer act of faith than the procreation of children.

  Thornton Wilder

  Faith, Children, Self

  "The Eighth Day". Book by Thornton Wilder, 1967.

• She had never realized any love save love as passion. Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed though a long servitude, though its own self-hatred, though mockery, though great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties. Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

  Thornton Wilder

  Loyalty, Dog, Children

• Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day

  Thornton Wilder

  Children, Men, Week

  Thornton Wilder (2014). “The Eighth Day: A Novel”, p.15, Harper Collins

• Winning children (who appear so guileless) are children who have discovered how effective charm and modesty and a delicately calculated spontaneity are in winning what they want.

  Thornton Wilder

  Children, Winning, Want

  Interview in "Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, First Series", edited by Malcolm Cowley, 1958.

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