Thornton Wilder

“He respected the slight nervous shadow that crossed her face when he came too near her. But there arose out of this…

— Thornton Wilder

When you're safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you're having an adventure you wish you were safe…

— Thornton Wilder

“Simon Stimson: "...That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down…

— Thornton Wilder

“Love as education is one of the great powers of the world, but it hangs in a delicate suspension; it achieves its…

— Thornton Wilder

Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by…

— Thornton Wilder

A man looks pretty small at a wedding, George. All those good women standing shoulder to shoulder, making sure that the knot's…

— Thornton Wilder

The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs.

— Thornton Wilder

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

— Thornton Wilder

I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the…

— Thornton Wilder

Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

— Thornton Wilder

“Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not…

— Thornton Wilder

Every person who has ever lived has lived an unbroken succession of unique occasions.

— Thornton Wilder

“Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of…

— Thornton Wilder

Ninety-nine per cent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.

— Thornton Wilder

There's nothing like mixing with woman to bring out all the foolishness in a man of sense.

— Thornton Wilder

“It is only dogs that never bite their masters.”

— Thornton Wilder

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

— Thornton Wilder

“He gazed for an hour upon the great clouds of pearl that hang forever upon the horizon of that sea, and extracted…

— Thornton Wilder

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

— Thornton Wilder

“Her religious beliefs went first, for all she could ask of a god, or of immortality, was the gift of a place…

— Thornton Wilder

“Contemplating Clodia I find scarcely a drop in my heart of that compassion which Epicurus enjoins us to extend toward the erring.”

— Thornton Wilder

One of the dangers of the American artist is that he finds himself almost exclusively thrown in with persons more or less…

— Thornton Wilder

“Many who have spent a lifetime can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.”

— Thornton Wilder

“In the early summer of 1902 John Barrington”

— Thornton Wilder

But there comes a moment in everybody's life when he must decide whether he'll live among the human beings or not -…

— Thornton Wilder