Thornton Wilder

Who was Thornton Wilder?

Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the two plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth—and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day.

Famous Quotes:

• 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.
• My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate -- that's my philosophy.
• The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape.
• 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.
• A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it.
• 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.
• A play visibly represents pure existing.
• It's when you're safe at home that you wish you were having an adventure. When you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.
• It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves.
• For what human ill does dawn not seem to be alternative?