Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.

— Thornton Wilder

Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!... 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. Goodbye, Goodbye world. Goodbye, Grover's Corners.... Mama and Papa. Goodbye 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 are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute? Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some. Emily: I'm ready to go back.

— Thornton Wilder

Everybody has a right to their own troubles.

— Thornton Wilder

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation.

— Thornton Wilder

For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?

— Thornton Wilder

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.

— Thornton Wilder

Her religious beliefs went first, for all she could ask of a god, or of immortality, was the gift of a place where daughters love their mothers; the other attributes of Heaven you could have for a song.

— Thornton Wilder

Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous.

— Thornton Wilder

I can't look at everything hard enough!

— Thornton Wilder

If a man has no vices he's in great danger of making vices about his virtues and there's a spectacle.

— Thornton Wilder