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Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder Quotes

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Famous Thornton Wilder Quotes

“[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.”

PeopleWorldLittlesLongSaidSelfMightDesireSawsThis WorldMovedHearingAccidentsDrunkAppealsComplimentDreadClosestCommunionEgotismArmorGazingClosest Friends
Book:The Bridge of San Luis Rey: A Novel
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“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.”

ThinkingMatterSeemsLyingStarsHoursFireJourneySkyHavensDown AndScholarStrainSixteenChalkOur TownEverybody Lies
Book:Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays & Writings on Theater
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“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.”

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Author:Thornton Wilder
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“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.”

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Book:The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels, 1926-1948
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“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.”

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Author:Thornton Wilder
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“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?”

WantTryingFirstsLittlesPersonsHas BeensSaidRememberYoungBitsCrazyStreetsPleaseLittle BitI Want YouOur TownSleepwalking
Book:Our town: a play in three acts
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“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.”

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Book:Conversations with Thornton Wilder
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