Thornton Wilder
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilderwas an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the two plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth — and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth17 April 1897
CityMadison, WI
CountryUnited States of America
summer boys sparrows
Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer's day, and some say, to the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.
choices mind sovereign
We do not choose the day of our birth nor may we choose the day of our death, yet choice is the sovereign faculty of the mind.
important important-days enough
Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough.
literature platitudes orchestration
Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.
problem revival persuasive
The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem - new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones.
order trying may
The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape
letting-go ambition long
The dead don't stay interested in us living people for very long. Gradually, gradually, they let go hold of the earth . . . and the ambitions they had . . . and the things they suffered . . . and the people they loved. They get weaned away from the earth - that's the way I put it - weaned away.
rip hate house
How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you rip the fronts off houses you'd find swine? The world is a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?
leadership order issues
The condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone, and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows.
faith doe hope-and-faith
There is no creation without faith and hope. There is no faith and hope that does not express itself in creation.
military rose soldier
I rose by sheer military ability to the rank of corporal.
travel heaven destination
Heaven's my destination.
eye secret influence
true influence over another comes not from a moments eloquence nor from any happily chosen word, but from the accumulation of a lifetime's thoughts stored up in the eyes...the secret smile in the eyes of a friend
luxury world expensive
The future is the most expensive luxury in the world.