01UndatedBut while they continued staring into one another’s face waiting for the miracle of science the pain grew worse.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
02UndatedCesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessityThornton Wilder / quote ↗
03UndatedNever 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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
04UndatedI have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclapsThornton Wilder / quote ↗
06UndatedThe Marquesa would even have been astonished to learn that her letters were very good, for such authors live always in the noble weather of their own minds and those productions which seem remarkable to us are little better than a day's routine to them.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
08UndatedEmily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on.It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.Emily: I'm ready to go back.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
09UndatedHer religious beliefs went first, for all she could ask of a god, or of immortality, was the gift of a place where daughters love their mothers; the other attributes of Heaven you could have for a song.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
10UndatedThroughout 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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
11Undated[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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
12UndatedShe 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!Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
13UndatedAnd 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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
14UndatedThe mind of Caesar. It is the reverse of most men's. 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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
15UndatedPerhaps she would learn in time to permit both her daughter and her gods to govern their own affairs.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
17UndatedThere 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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
18UndatedBut such occasions of excellence became less and less frequent. As her technique became sounder, [her] sincerity became less necessary.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
20UndatedYou 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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
21UndatedI 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?Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
22Undated[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.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
23UndatedThe marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she is a householder.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
24UndatedMy advice to you is not to inquire why or whither but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate.Thornton Wilder / quote ↗
