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Thornton Wilder Biography

Thornton Wilder

Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth — and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day.

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Thornton Wilder Quotes

I was an old man when I was 12; and now I am an old man, AND IT'S SPLENDID!

Man, Men, Old, Old Man, Splendid

There's nothing like mixing with woman to bring out all the foolishness in a man of sense.

Men, Men And Women, Mixing, Nothing, Sense

An incinerator is a writer's best friend.

Friend, Friendship, Incinerator

Comparisons of one's lot with others' teaches us nothing and enfeebles the will.

Comparison, Comparisons, Enfeebles, Nothing, Teach, Teaches

All excellence is equally difficult.

Difficult, Equally, Excellence

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.

Away, Boys, Contrary, Sparrows, Summer

A good writer preserves an air of freedom in his prose, so that the reader won't know how a story will end - even if he's reading a history book.

Air, Book, Know, Reading, Story, Writer

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.

Awkward, Daily, Exchange, Giving, Speech, Style

That's the advantage of having lived sixty-five years. You don't feel the need to be impatient any longer.

Advantage, Having, Impatient, Lived, Needs, Years

Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough.

Choose, Day, Enough, Important, Important Days, Life

I not only bow to the inevitable; I am fortified by it.

Attitude, Bow, Fear, Fortified, Hope, Inevitable

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.

Serve, Way, Winning, Writing

The stuff of which masterpieces are made drifts about the world waiting to be clothed in words.

Drifts, Masterpieces, Stuff, Waiting, World

On the stage it is always now; the personages are standing on that razor-edge, between the past and the future, which is the essential character of conscious being.

Character, Conscious, Essentials, Past, Stage

Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners. . . Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking. . . and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. . . and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

Clocks, Coffee, Sleep, Sunflower, Wonderful, World

The best thing about animals is they don't talk much.

Animal, Animals, Best Things, Talk, Thing

[Dona Maria] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires.

Accidents, Communion, Long, People, Self

Faith is a never-ending pool of clarity, reaching far beyond the margins of consciousness. We all know more than we know we know.

Clarity, Consciousness, Faith, Margins, Pool, Reaching

If I wasn't an actor, I'd be a secret agent.

Acting, Actor, Actors, Agent, Secret

A convention is an agreed-upon falsehood, a permitted lie.

Lying, Conventions, Falsehood, Permitted, Convention

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