Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Thornton Wilder

Quote by Thornton Wilder

Work

The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Other Novels, 1926-1948

This collection encompasses a selection of works, with 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey' being one of its most celebrated pieces, reflecting the author's narrative style and thematic concerns during the specified period. more

Author

Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder

American playwright, renowned for his works 'Our Town' and 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'. His works are characterized by deep insight and a unique style, profoundly influencing 20th-century American theater. more

You May Also Like

“Cinema is the culmination of the obsessive, mechanistic male drive in western culture. The movie projector is an Apollonian straight-shooter, demonstrating the link between aggression and art. Every pictorial framing is a ritual limitation, a barred precinct.”

ArtFilmCultureWesternMalesLimitationCinemaLinksRitualAggressionObsessiveDemonstratingWestern CultureCulminationFramingShooterPictorialProjectors
Book:Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
Create image

“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It's another part of the twentieth-century mind. It's the world seen from inside. We've come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film. You have to ask yourself if there's anything about us more important than the fact that we're constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”

IfsWorldMindArtImportantFactsFilmCertainAsksCenturyTwentieth CenturyImplied
Book:The Names
Create image

“A strange thing has happened - while all the other arts were born naked, this, the youngest, has been born fully-clothed. It can say everything before it has anything to say. It is as if the savage tribe, instead of finding two bars of iron to play with, had found scattering the seashore fiddles, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, grand pianos by Erhard and Bechstein, and had begun with incredible energy, but without knowing a note of music, to hammer and thump upon them all at the same time.”

IfsHas BeensArtTwoPlayFilmFoundEnergyBornKnowingHappenedStrangeFindingsNotesIncrediblesBarsNakedPianoIronSavagesTribesHammersTrumpetsStrange ThingsSaxophoneFiddleFlutesSeashore
Book:The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1925-1928
Create image

“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half-piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”

IfsWayTryingRealHardMightFilmPerfectHalfAudiencePiecesModernClothesIllusionTechniqueSuitsKneesContributionBeing RealShockedNoticingIntriguedPopcornMotion PicturesBathingBathing SuitsToenails
Book:Raymond Chandler Speaking
Create image

“The making of a picture ought surely to be a rather fascinating adventure. It is not; it is an endless contention of tawdry egos, some of them powerful, almost all of them vociferous, and almost none of them capable of anything much more creative than credit-stealing and self-promotion.”

SelfFilmPowerfulCreativeAdventureOughtEgoCapableCreditEndlessStealingFascinatingPromotionContentionSelf Promotion
Book:Raymond Chandler Speaking
Create image