"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."

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“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 theatre is supremely fitted to say: "Behold! These things are." Yet most dramatists employ it to say: "This moral truth can be learned from beholding this action.”

“Thornton Wilder at the Internet Movie Database”

“Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.”

“Man is not an end but a beginning. We are at the beginning of the second week. We are children of the eighth day.”

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

Resonant Thoughts

"Francis Fukuyama seized on the ignominious collapse of the Soviet system as proof that “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” was “the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the …"

— Allen C. Guelzo

Politics1953

#politics

"In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the ad…"

— Mikhail Bakunin

Philosophy1764–1837

#writing

"We all have work to do, hard work, challenging work, and it will take time. We all need to talk and we all need to listen, not just about easy things, but about hard things, too. Relationships are har…"

— James Comey

Law1960

#time

"I made sail, and directed the other vessels to follow, for the purpose of closing with the enemy. Every brace and bowline being soon shot away, she became unmanageable, notwithstanding the great exert…"

— Oliver Hazard Perry

Military1785–1819

#courage