Thornton Wilder - Our Town (1938)

23 Sourced Quotes

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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
Every person who has ever lived has lived an unbroken succession of unique occasions.

Thornton Wilder
Characterization in a play is like a blank check which the dramatist accords to the actor for him to fill in.

Thornton Wilder
How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives.

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
Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to.

Thornton Wilder
A living is made, Mr Kemper, by selling something that everybody needs at least once a year.Yes, sir! And a million ismade by producing something that everybody needs every day.You artists produce something that nobody needs at any time.

Thornton Wilder
Whenever you come near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense.

Thornton Wilder
That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those... of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know — that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.

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

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

Thornton Wilder
The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go,—doesn't it?

Thornton Wilder
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
A man looks pretty small at a wedding, George. All those good women standing shoulder to shoulder, making sure that the knot's tied in a mighty public way.

Thornton Wilder
Being employed is like being loved: you know that somebody's thinking about you the whole time.

Thornton Wilder
But listen, it's not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God,—that's what it said on the envelope.

Thornton Wilder
Wherever you come near the human race there's layers and layers of nonsense.

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
There are the stars — doing their old, old crisscross journeys in the sky. Scholars haven't settled the matter yet, but they seem to think there are no living beings out there. Just chalk... or fire. Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. Strain's so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest.

Thornton Wilder
Most everybody in the world climbs into their graves married.

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
I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young. And particularly the days when you were first in love; when you were like a person sleepwalking, and you didn't quite see the street you were in, and didn't quite hear everything that was said to you. You're just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please?

Thornton Wilder
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