Thornton Wilder Quotes

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

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

It is only dogs that never bite their masters.

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

[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.

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

So - people a thousand years from now...This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.

Pride avarice and envy are in every home.

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

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

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.

Look at that moon. Potato weather for sure.

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

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.

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.

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

Where there is an unknowable there is a promise.

I can't look at everything hard enough!

Many plays certainly mine are like blank cheques. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.

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

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.

A play visibly represents pure existing.

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

We live in what is but we find 1 000 ways not to face it. Great theatre strengthens our faculty to face it.

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

People are meant to go through life two by two. ’Tain’t natural to be lonesome.

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

A sense of humor judges one's actions and the actions of others from a wider reference ... it pardons shortcomings it consoles failure. It recommends moderation.

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

The central movement of the mind is the desire for unrestricted liberty and (...) this movement is invariably accompanied by its opposite, a dread of the consequences of liberty.

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.

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

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.

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?

Perhaps she would learn in time to permit both her daughter and her gods to govern their own affairs.

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

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

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

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation.

The marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she is a householder.

Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.

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

The art of biography is more difficult than is generally supposed.

Everybody has a right to their own troubles.

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

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

The future is the most expensive luxury in the world.

But while they continued staring into one another’s face waiting for the miracle of science the pain grew worse.

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

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.