Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Thornton Wilder (American Novelist, Dramatist)

Thornton Niven Wilder (1897–1975) was a prolific American novelist, playwright, and essayist. Over a writing career spanning 50 years, he wrote folksy, optimistic—and subversive—novels and plays that reflect his views of the universal truths in human nature. This three-time Pulitzer winner remains a much-loved and populist literary icon.

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Wilder was educated at Yale. After graduating, he studied archaeology and Italian in Rome and served in both wars, becoming a lieutenant colonel in 1944. He started his career as a teacher of English at Lawrenceville Academy 1921–28 and the University of Chicago 1930–37.

Wilder’s celebrated works include The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927; Pulitzer,) The Woman of Andros (1930,) Heaven’s My Destination (1935,) and The Ides of March (1948.) His first plays—The Trumpet Shall Sound (1926,) The Angel That Troubled the Waters (1928,) and The Long Christmas Dinner (1931)—were more literary and less theatrical. He subsequently produced Our Town (1938; Pulitzer,) a successful play that conjures without scenery or costumes a universal of provincial life, and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942; Pulitzer,) an amusing and philosophical fable of humanity’s struggle to survive.

Wilder’s later plays include The Matchmaker (1954,) A Life in the Sun (1955,) The Eighth Day (1967,) Theophilus North (1974) and, the musical Hello Dolly! (1964;) the latter was based on The Matchmaker.

Wilder also wrote modern adaptations of André Obey’s play Lucrèce (1932) and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1937.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thornton Wilder

The best part of married life is the fights. The rests is merely so.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Marriage

I not only bow to the inevitable; I am fortified by it.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Acceptance, Attitude

Many plays, certainly mine, are like blank cheques. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Theater

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Gratitude

The unencumbered stage encourages the truth operative in everyone. The less seen, the more heard. The eye is the enemy of the ear in real drama.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Theater

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Reading

Oh earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.
—Thornton Wilder

I rose by sheer military ability to the rank of corporal.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: The Military

A play visibly represents pure existing.
—Thornton Wilder

Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she’s a householder.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Marriage

Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Literature, Books

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.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Comedy

I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Poetry

Pride, avarice, and envy are in every home.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Pride

Every writer is necessarily a critic—that is, each sentence is a skeleton accompanied by enormous activity of rejection; and each selection is governed by general principles concerning truth, force, beauty, and so on. The critic that is in every fabulist is like the iceberg—nine-tenths of him is under water.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Criticism, Critics

Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own value.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Love

Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Hope

A sense of humor judges one’s actions and the actions of others from a wider reference … it pardons shortcomings; it consoles failure. It recommends moderation.
—Thornton Wilder

Favors cease to be favors when there are conditions attached to them.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Generosity

That’s the advantage of having lived 65 years. You don’t feel the need to be impatient any longer.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Resilience, Patience

The future is the most expensive luxury in the world.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: The Future, Tomorrow

A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Theater

The best thing about animals is that they don’t talk much.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Animals

The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Morning

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Meaning, Romance, Discovery, Love

It’s when you’re safe at home that you wish you were having an adventure. When you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Conflict

Comparisons of one’s lot with others’ teaches us nothing and enfeebles the will.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Reality, Comparisons, Opportunities

Where there is an unknowable, there is a promise.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Ignorance, Promises

The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose.
—Thornton Wilder
Topics: Choice, Choices, Decision

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