Quotes by Famous Americans Past and Present
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Quotes by Famous Americans Past and Present
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Thornton Wilder Quotes Click here for Thornton Wilder books Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater (Library of America) "I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island." "Literature is the orchestration of platitudes." "Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own value." "Love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it gives birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed through a long servitude, through its own self-hatred, through mockery, through great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties." "I am not interested in the ephemeral — such subjects as the adulteries of dentists. I am interested in those things that repeat and repeat and repeat in the lives of the millions." "People are meant to go through life two by two. 'Tain't natural to be lonesome." "My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate — that's my philosophy." "Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she's a householder." "Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. Then you'll have the miser who's no liar; and the drunkard who's the benefactor of the whole city." "Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow." "Ninety-nine per cent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion." "Winning children (who appear so guileless) are children who have discovered how effective charm and modesty and a delicately calculated spontaneity are in winning what they want." "Many great writers have been extraordinarily awkward in daily exchange, but the greatest give the impression that their style was nursed by the closest attention to colloquial speech." "I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts." "One of the dangers of the American artist is that he finds himself almost exclusively thrown in with persons more or less in the arts. He lives among them, eats among them, quarrels with them, marries them." "Those who are silent, self-effacing and attentive become the recipients of confidences." "Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous." "An incinerator is a writer's best friend." "Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day." "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." |
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