Thornton Wilder Quotes

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's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Heaven's my destination.

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

Imprisonment of the body is bitter; imprisonment of the mind is worse

Everybody has a right to their own troubles.

I can't look at everything hard enough!

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.

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.

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.

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

It is only dogs that never bite their masters.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Where there is an unknowable there is a promise.

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

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

Pride avarice and envy are in every home.

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

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

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.

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