The Matchmaker Quotes

“Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker

“Being employed is like being loved: you know that somebody's thinking about you the whole time.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker

“If a man has no vices, he's in great danger of making vices out of his virtues, and there's a spectacle. We've all seen them: men who were monsters of philanthropy and women who were dragons of purity. ... No, no - nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modesly around it.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker

“The marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she is a householder.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker

“Everybody should eavesdrop once in a while. There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker

“would always advise any young writer for the theater to do everything—to adapt plays, to translate plays, to hang around theaters, to paint scenery, to become an actor. . . . There’s a bottomless pit in the acquisition of how to tell an imagined story to listeners and viewers.”
― Thornton Wilder, The Matchmaker: A Classic Broadway Farce of Mistaken Identity and Romantic Chaos – Became Hello, Dolly!