Quote

I think I write in order to discover on my shelf a new book that I would enjoy reading, or to see a new play that would engross me.

Thornton Wilder

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Thornton Wilder
Age: 78 †
Born: 1897
Born: April 17
Died: 1975
Died: December 7
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Madison
Wisconsin
Thornton Niven Wilder
Order
Book
Play
Shelf
Writing
Shelves
Would
Discover
Think
Reading
Thinking
Enjoy
Write

More quotes by Thornton Wilder

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Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own value.
Thornton Wilder
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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's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?
Thornton Wilder
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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.
Thornton Wilder
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Heaven's my destination.
Thornton Wilder
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Those who are silent, self-effacing and attentive become the recipients of confidences.
Thornton Wilder
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I rose by sheer military ability to the rank of corporal.
Thornton Wilder
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What is essential does not die but clarifies.
Thornton Wilder
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We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
Thornton Wilder
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Leadership is for those who love the public good and are endowed and trained to administer it.
Thornton Wilder
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It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness.
Thornton Wilder
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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.
Thornton Wilder
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That's the advantage of having lived sixty-five years. You don't feel the need to be impatient any longer.
Thornton Wilder
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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.
Thornton Wilder
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I am my own judge of what truths I shall tell. The truth can do just as much harm as a lie.
Thornton Wilder
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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?
Thornton Wilder
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you have to love life to have life, and you need to have life to love life
Thornton Wilder
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Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.
Thornton Wilder
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Where there is an unknowable, there is a promise.
Thornton Wilder
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Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.
Thornton Wilder
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The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.
Thornton Wilder