Thornton Wilder Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• I not only bow to the inevitable; I am fortified by it.

  Thornton Wilder

  Hope, Attitude, Fear

  Thornton Wilder (1987). “The ides of March”, HarperCollins

  10 Copy quote

• We do not choose the day of our birth nor may we choose the day of our death, yet choice is the sovereign faculty of the mind.

  Thornton Wilder

  Choices, Mind, May

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

  12 Copy quote

• 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”

  16 Copy quote

• The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself "Oh now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home. And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure.

  Thornton Wilder

  Home, Adventure, Wish

  Thornton Wilder (2016). “Our Town and Other Plays”, p.293, Penguin UK

  56 Copy quote

• There is nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.

  Thornton Wilder

  Truth, Honesty, Different

  Thornton Wilder (1966). “Three Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Matchmaker”

  71 Copy quote

• I have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclaps

  Thornton Wilder

  Men, Bird, Superstitions

  Thornton Wilder (2014). “The Ides of March: A Novel”, p.5, Harper Collins

  9 Copy quote

• Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but theremay never be two that love one another equally well.

  Thornton Wilder

  Beautiful, Two, Perfect

  9 Copy quote

• An incinerator is a writer's best friend.

  Thornton Wilder

  Friendship

  13 Copy quote

• Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.

  Thornton Wilder

  Encouraging, Money, Humorous

  "The Matchmaker". Play by Thornton Wilder. Act 4, 1957.

  18 Copy quote

• the whole purport of literature...is the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.

  Thornton Wilder

  Heart, Style, Literature

  8 Copy quote

• I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms.

  Thornton Wilder

  Art, Theatre, Acting

  12 Copy quote

• There are the stars--doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings out there. Just chalk... or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. Strain's so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest.

  Thornton Wilder

  Stars, Lying, Journey

  Thornton Wilder (2007). “Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater”

  4 Copy quote

• All excellence is equally difficult.

  Thornton Wilder

  Excellence, Difficult

  Thornton Wilder, Jackson R. Bryer (1992). “Conversations with Thornton Wilder”, p.77, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  12 Copy quote

• Being employed is like being loved: you know that somebody's thinking about you the whole time.

  Thornton Wilder

  Thinking About You, Employed, Whole

  Thornton Wilder (2007). “Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater”

  10 Copy quote

• [Camila] was quite incapable of establishing any harmony between the claims of her art, of her appetites, or her dreams, and of her crowded daily routine. Each of these was a world in itself.

  Thornton Wilder

  Dream, Art, Routine

  Thornton Wilder (1961). “Twayne's United States Authors Series”

  9 Copy quote

• true influence over another comes not from a moments eloquence nor from any happily chosen word, but from the accumulation of a lifetime's thoughts stored up in the eyes...the secret smile in the eyes of a friend

  Thornton Wilder

  Eye, Secret, Influence

  8 Copy quote

• You swore you loved me, and laughed and warned me that you would not love me forever. I did not hear you. You were speaking in a language I did not understand. Never, never, I can conceive of a love which is able to foresee its own termination. Love is its own eternity. Love is in every moment of its being: all time. It is the only glimpse we are permitted of what eternity is. So I did not hear you. The words were nonsense.

  Thornton Wilder

  Love, Forever, Age

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

  5 Copy quote

• Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.

  Thornton Wilder

  Existence, Live By, Plans

  Thornton Wilder (2014). “The Bridge of San Luis Rey: A Novel”, p.8, Harper Collins

  5 Copy quote

• Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.

  Thornton Wilder

  Literature, Platitudes, Orchestration

  In Time 12 Jan. 1953

  7 Copy quote

• Comparisons of one's lot with others' teaches us nothing and enfeebles the will.

  Thornton Wilder

  Teach, Comparison

  Thornton Wilder, Jackson R. Bryer (1992). “Conversations with Thornton Wilder”, p.69, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  5 Copy quote

• But there comes a time in everybody's life when he must decide whether he'll live among human beings or nota fool among fools or a fool alone.

  Thornton Wilder

  Time, Fool, Humans

  1954 The Matchmaker, act 4.

  6 Copy quote

• How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives.

  Thornton Wilder

  Writing, Men, Roles

  Thornton Wilder (1987). “The ides of March”, HarperCollins

  4 Copy quote

• Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners... Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking... and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

  Thornton Wilder

  Coffee, Sleep, Sunflower

  Thornton Wilder (1966). “Three Plays: Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Matchmaker”

  16 Copy quote

• The dead don't stay interested in us living people for very long. Gradually, gradually, they let go hold of the earth . . . and the ambitions they had . . . and the things they suffered . . . and the people they loved. They get weaned away from the earth - that's the way I put it - weaned away.

  Thornton Wilder

  Letting Go, Ambition, Long

  Our Town act 3 (1938). Ellipses in the original.

  5 Copy quote

• 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”

  7 Copy quote

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