Quotes by Thornton Wilder

She resembled the swallow in the fable who once every thousand years transferred a grain of wheat, in the hope of rearing a mountain to reach the moon. Such persons are raised up in every age; they obstinately insist on transporting their grains of wheat and they derive a certain exhilaration from the sneers of the bystanders. “How queerly they dress!” we cry. “How queerly they dress!

And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess.

The mind of Caesar. It is the reverse of most mens. It rejoices in committing itself. To us arrive each day a score of challenges; we must say yes or no to decisions that will set off chains of consequences. Some of us deliberate; some of us refuse the decision, which is itself a decision; some of us leap giddily into the decision, setting our jaws and closing our eyes, which is the sort of decision of despair. Caesar embraces decision. It is as though he felt his mind to be operating only when it is interlocking itself with significant consequences. Caesar shrinks from no responsibility. He heaps more and more upon his shoulders.

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.

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.

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

Look at that moon. Potato weather for sure.

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.

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?

[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.

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 its 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.

A play visibly represents pure existing.

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

Thats the advantage of having lived sixty-five years. You dont feel the need to be impatient any longer.

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