"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."
Read quote
88 likes
Quote collection
Thornton Wilder quotes (page 1 of 7)
139 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island."
Read quote
83 likes
"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate."
Read quote
73 likes
"There is nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head."
Read quote
67 likes
"We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being. -stage manager, in the play OUR TOWN"
Read quote
61 likes
"If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent."
Read quote
59 likes
"The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself "Oh now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home. And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."
Read quote
55 likes
"I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them--it was that promise."
Read quote
55 likes
"But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."
Read quote
52 likes
"All that we know about those we have loved and lost is that they would wish us to remember them with a more intensified realization of their reality. What is essential does not die but clarifies. The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude."
Read quote
50 likes
"The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude."
Read quote
49 likes
"Art is not only the desire to tell one's secret; it is the desire to tell it and hide it at the same time."
Read quote
41 likes
"If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good"
Read quote
40 likes
"Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?"
Read quote
33 likes
"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."
Read quote
32 likes
"Enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate."
Read quote
25 likes
"Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous."
Read quote
25 likes
"Every good thing in the world stands on the razor-edge of danger."
Read quote
24 likes
"The stuff of which masterpieces are made drifts about the world waiting to be clothed in words."
Read quote
23 likes
"A play visibly represents pure existing."
Read quote
22 likes