Top quotes by Thornton Wilder

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day. Votes: 24

When God loves a creature he wants the creature to know the highest happiness and the deepest misery He wants him to know all that being alive can bring. That is his best gift. There is no happiness save in understanding the whole. Votes: 21

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. Votes: 19

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. Votes: 18

I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island. Votes: 15

The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose. Votes: 13

Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own value. Votes: 13

Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them. Votes: 13

It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness. Votes: 12

The theatre is supremely fitted to say: 'Behold! These things are.' Yet most dramatists employ it to say: 'This moral truth can be learned from beholding this action.' Votes: 11

It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves. Votes: 11

Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous. Votes: 10

Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day. Votes: 9

A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it. Votes: 8

Characterization in a play is like a blank check which the dramatist accords to the actor for him to fill in. Votes: 8

But there comes a moment in everybody's life when he must decide whether he'll live among the human beings or not - a fool among fools or a fool alone. Votes: 7

Pride, avarice, and envy are in every home. Votes: 7

Nature reserves the right to inflict upon her children the most terrifying jests. Votes: 6

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent. Votes: 6

I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for. Votes: 6

There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head. Votes: 6

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. Votes: 5

Every good thing in the world stands on the razor-edge of danger. Votes: 5

Love as education is one of the great powers of the world, but it hangs in a delicate suspension; it achieves its harmony as seldom as does love by the senses. Frustrated, it creates even greater havoc, for like all love it is a madness. Votes: 5

In advertising, not to be different is virtual suicide. Votes: 4

Love as education is one of the great powers of the world, but it hangs in a delicate suspension; it achieves its harmony as seldom as does love by the senses. Frustrated, it creates even greater havoc, for like all love it is a madness." Votes: 4

The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it say to yourself, Oh, now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish... Votes: 3

Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she's a householder. Votes: 3

The best thing about animals is that they don't talk much. Votes: 2

Her religious beliefs went first, for all she could ask of a god, or of immortality, was the gift of a place where daughters love their mothers; the other attributes of Heaven you could have for a song." Votes: 1

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. Votes: 0

The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape Votes: 0

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion. Votes: 0

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate. Votes: 0

Enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate. Votes: 0

The condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone, and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows. Votes: 0

That's the advantage of having lived sixty-five years. You don't feel the need to be impatient any longer. Votes: 0

Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It's your combination sinners - your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards - who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute. Votes: 0

There is nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head. Votes: 0

I am not interested in the ephemeral - such subjects as the adulteries of dentists. I am interested in those things that repeat and repeat and repeat in the lives of the millions. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts. Votes: 0

The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way. Votes: 0

Every writer is necessarily a critic - that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on. The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg - nine-tenths of him is under water. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

All that we know about those we have loved and lost is that they would wish us to remember them with a more intensified realization of their reality. What is essential does not die but clarifies. The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude. Votes: 0

On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below. Votes: 0

Literature is the orchestration of platitudes. Votes: 0

Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success. Votes: 0

An incinerator is a writer's best friend. Votes: 0

A play visibly represents pure existing. Votes: 0

Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow. Votes: 0

The art of biography is more difficult than is generally supposed. Votes: 0

They had been brought up to think that the domestic virtues were self-evident and universal; they had been starved of the knowledge that most attracts the young mind: that the crown of life is the exercise of choice Votes: 0

There is no need for me to curse you -the murderer survives the victim only to learn that it was himself that he longed to be rid of. Hatred is self-hatred. Votes: 0

She did not suspect that the Abbess was even there hovering about the house, herself estimating the stresses and watching for the moment when a burden harms and not strengthens. Votes: 0

Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan. Votes: 0

The Marquesa would even have been astonished to learn that her letters were very good, for such authors live always in the noble weather of their own minds and those productions which seem remarkable to us are little better than a day's routine to them. Votes: 0

The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs. Votes: 0

Her religious beliefs went first, for all she could ask of a god, or of immortality, was the gift of a place where daughters love their mothers; the other attributes of Heaven you could have for a song. Votes: 0

But such occasions of excellence became less and less frequent. As her technique became sounder, [her] sincerity became less necessary. Votes: 0

There is not a single untruth, no -but after ten lines Truth shrieks, she runs distraught and disheveled through her temple's corridors; she does not know herself. 'I can endure lies,' she cries. 'I cannot survive this stifling verisimilitude Votes: 0

Throughout the hours of the night, though there had been few to hear it, the whole sky had been loud with the singing of these constellations. Votes: 0

All of us have failed. One wishes to be punished. One is willing to assume all kinds of penance, but do you know, my daughter, that in love -- I scarcely dare say it -- but in love our very mistakes don't seem to be able to last long~? Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer's day, and some say, to the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God. Votes: 0

EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?" STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some. Votes: 0

The unencumbered stage encourages the truth operative in everyone. The less seen, the more heard. The eye is the enemy of the ear in real drama. Votes: 0

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms. Votes: 0

Life is an unbroken succession of false situations. Votes: 0

Those who are silent, self-effacing and attentive become the recipients of confidences. Votes: 0

Marriage is a bribe to make the housekeeper think she's a householder. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday. Votes: 0

[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. Votes: 0

[Dona Maria] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires. Votes: 0

[Whenever] you get near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense. Votes: 0

A convention is an agreed-upon falsehood, a permitted lie. Votes: 0

A dramatist is one who from his earliest years has found that sheer gazing at the shocks and counter-shocks among people is quite sufficiently engrossing without having to encase it in comment. Votes: 0

A good writer preserves an air of freedom in his prose, so that the reader won't know how a story will end - even if he's reading a history book. Votes: 0

A living is made, Mr Kemper, by selling something that everybody needs at least once a year.Yes, sir! And a million ismade by producing something that everybody needs every day.You artists produce something that nobody needs at any time. Votes: 0

A man looks pretty small at a wedding, George. All those good women standing shoulder to shoulder, making sure that the knot's tied in a mighty public way. Votes: 0

A purpose is the eternal condition of success. Votes: 0

A sense of humor judges one's actions and the actions of others from a wider reference. It pardons shortcomings, it consoles failure. Votes: 0

All excellence is equally difficult. Votes: 0

Art is not only the desire to tell one's secret; it is the desire to tell it and hide it at the same time. Votes: 0

Being employed is like being loved: you know that somebody's thinking about you the whole time. Votes: 0

But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough. Votes: 0

Comparisons of one's lot with others' teaches us nothing and enfeebles the will. Votes: 0

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Votes: 0

Doctors are mostly impostors. The older a doctor is and the more venerated he is, the more he must pretend to know everything. Of course, they grow worse with time. Always look for a doctor who is hated by the best doctors. Always seek out a bright young doctor before he comes down with nonsense. Votes: 0

Even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. Votes: 0

Every person who has ever lived has lived an unbroken succession of unique occasions. Votes: 0

Everybody's talking about people breaking into houses but there are more people in the world who want to break out of houses. Votes: 0

Faith is a never-ending pool of clarity, reaching far beyond the margins of consciousness. We all know more than we know we know. Votes: 0

Favors cease to be favors when there are conditions attached to them. Votes: 0

For what human ill does dawn not seem to be alternative? Votes: 0

He regarded love as a sort of cruel malady through which the elect are required to pass in their late youth and from which they emerge, pale and wrung, but ready for the business of living. Votes: 0

Heaven's my destination. Votes: 0

How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you rip the fronts off houses you'd find swine? The world is a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I am my own judge of what truths I shall tell. The truth can do just as much harm as a lie. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclaps Votes: 0

I hold we cannot be said to be aware of our minds save under responsibility. Votes: 0

I not only bow to the inevitable; I am fortified by it. Votes: 0

I rose by sheer military ability to the rank of corporal. Votes: 0

I think I write in order to discover on my shelf a new book that I would enjoy reading, or to see a new play that would engross me. Votes: 0

I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young. And particularly the days when you were first in love; when you were like a person sleepwalking, and you didn't quite see the street you were in, and didn't quite hear everything that was said to you. You're just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please? Votes: 0

I was an old man when I was 12; and now I am an old man, AND IT'S SPLENDID! Votes: 0

If a man has no vices, he is in great danger of making vices about his virtues, and there's a spectacle. Votes: 0

If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good Votes: 0

Imprisonment of the body is bitter; imprisonment of the mind is worse Votes: 0

I've never forgotten for long at a time that living is struggle. I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for - whether it's a field, or a home, or a country. Votes: 0

Leadership is for those who love the public good and are endowed and trained to administer it. Votes: 0

Life is a fatal adventure. It can only have one end. So why not make it as far-ranging and free as possible. Votes: 0

Look at that moon. Potato weather for sure. Votes: 0

Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day Votes: 0

Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech. Votes: 0

Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Votes: 0

Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute? Votes: 0

On the stage it is always now; the personages are standing on that razor-edge, between the past and the future, which is the essential character of conscious being. Votes: 0

One of the dangers of the American artist is that he finds himself almost exclusively thrown in with persons more or less in the arts. He lives among them, eats among them, quarrels with them, marries them. Votes: 0

Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to. Votes: 0

People a thousand years from now - this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our living and in our dying. Votes: 0

People are meant to go through life two by two. 'Tain't natural to be lonesome. Votes: 0

People were always asking for good sound proofs; doubt springs eternal in the human breast, even in countries where the Inquisition can read your very thoughts in your eyes. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

That's what it was like to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those...of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know- that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness. -Simon Stimson, OUR TOWN Votes: 0

The best part of married life is the fights. The rest is merely so-so. Votes: 0

The best thing about animals is they don't talk much. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous-and can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very slight-and that, also, can shatter the world. Votes: 0

The future is the most expensive luxury in the world. Votes: 0

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude. Votes: 0

The public for which masterpieces are intended is not of this earth. Votes: 0

The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem - new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones. Votes: 0

The stuff of which masterpieces are made drifts about the world waiting to be clothed in words. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

There is no creation without faith and hope. There is no faith and hope that does not express itself in creation. Votes: 0

There is no drunkenness equal to that of remembering whispered words in the night. Votes: 0

There is one regard in which bullies show real perception when compared with their victims; it is their silent good-natured pleasure of the moment. Votes: 0

There's nothing like mixing with woman to bring out all the foolishness in a man of sense. Votes: 0

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 Votes: 0

We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something way down deep that's eternal about every human being. -stage manager, in the play OUR TOWN Votes: 0

We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it. Great theater strengthens our faculty to face it. Votes: 0

What is essential does not die but clarifies. Votes: 0

When you're at war, you think about a better life; when you're at peace you think about a more comfortable one. Votes: 0

When you're safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home. Votes: 0

Where there is an unknowable, there is a promise. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

you have to love life to have life, and you need to have life to love life Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0