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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.

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
Secret
Desire
Tell
Art
Time
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More quotes by Thornton Wilder

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There is one regard in which bullies show real perception when compared with their victims it is their silent good-natured pleasure of the moment.
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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A sense of humor judges one's actions and the actions of others from a wider reference. It pardons shortcomings, it consoles failure.
Thornton Wilder
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The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.
Thornton Wilder
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I've never forgotten for long at a time that living is struggle. I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for - whether it's a field, or a home, or a country.
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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Look at that moon. Potato weather for sure.
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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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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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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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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When you're at war, you think about a better life when you're at peace you think about a more comfortable one.
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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The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous-and can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very slight-and that, also, can shatter the world.
Thornton Wilder
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A play visibly represents pure existing.
Thornton Wilder
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Imprisonment of the body is bitter imprisonment of the mind is worse
Thornton Wilder
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There is nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.
Thornton Wilder
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We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it. Great theater strengthens our faculty to face it.
Thornton Wilder
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I rose by sheer military ability to the rank of corporal.
Thornton Wilder
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The stuff of which masterpieces are made drifts about the world waiting to be clothed in words.
Thornton Wilder