Thornton Wilder - People Quotes

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The dead don't stay interested in us living people for very long. Gradually, gradually, they let go hold of the earth... and the ambitions they had... and the pleasures they had... and the things they suffered... and the people they loved. They get weaned away from earth—that's the way I put it — weaned away.

Thornton Wilder
I didn't marry you because you were perfect. I didn't even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn't a house that protected them; and it wasn't our love that protected them—it was that promise.

Thornton Wilder
Most of the people in the world are fools.... But there comes a moment in everybody's life when he must decide whether he'll live among the human beings or not — a fool among fools or a fool alone.

Thornton Wilder
I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back — up the hill — to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. 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.... Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? — Every, every minute?... I'm ready to go back... I should have listened to you. That's all human beings are! Just blind people.

Thornton Wilder
Ninety-nine per cent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.

Thornton Wilder
Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools, and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.

Thornton Wilder
People are meant to go through life two by two. 'Tain't natural to be lonesome.

Thornton Wilder
[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.

Thornton Wilder
People a thousand years from now - this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our living and in our dying.

Thornton Wilder
People were always asking for good sound proofs; doubt springs eternal in the human breast, even in countries where the Inquisition can read your very thoughts in your eyes.

Thornton Wilder