All of us have failed. One wishes to be punished. One is willing to assume all kinds of penance, but do you know, my daughter, that in love -- I scarcely dare say it -- but in love our very mistakes don't seem to be able to last long?

— Thornton Wilder

And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess.

— Thornton Wilder

A play visibly represents pure existing.

— Thornton Wilder

A sense of humor judges one's actions and the actions of others from a wider reference ... it pardons shortcomings it consoles failure. It recommends moderation.

— Thornton Wilder

But such occasions of excellence became less and less frequent. As her technique became sounder, [her] sincerity became less necessary.

— Thornton Wilder

But while they continued staring into one another’s face waiting for the miracle of science the pain grew worse.

— Thornton Wilder

[Camila] was quite incapable of establishing any harmony between the claims of her art, of her appetites, or her dreams, and of her crowded daily routine. Each of these was a world in itself.

— Thornton Wilder

Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity

— Thornton Wilder

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

— 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