Quotes from work
Our Town

Thornton Wilder

Our Town is a 1938 metatheatrical three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder. It tells the story of the fictional American small town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens.

“Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. …Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? — Every, every minute?”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

"Emily Webb"
Our Town (1938)
Context: 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.

“EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it… every, every minute?"

STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe… they do some.”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

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

Thornton Wilder Our Town

"Mrs. Gibbs"
Source: Our Town (1938)

“Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough.”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

“Wherever you come near the human race there's layers and layers of nonsense.”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

"Stage Manager"
Source: Our Town (1938)

“Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

“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 Our Town

Source: Our Town

“Look at that moon. Potato weather for sure.”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

“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 Our Town

"Mr. Webb"
Our Town (1938)

“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.”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

"Simon Stimson"
Our Town (1938)
Context: 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.