Thornton Wilder on writing

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

Wherever you come near the human race there’s layers and layers of nonsense.

I am not interested in the ephemeral — such subjects as the adulteries of dentists. I am interested in those things that repeat and repeat and repeat in the lives of the millions.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you have written.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778

• Love

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790

• Reading