It isn’t for long, you know

“We do what we can. We push on, Esteban, as best we can. It isn’t for long, you know. Time keeps going by. You’ll be surprised at the way time passes.”

– Thornton Wilder, The bridge of San Luis Rey: 73

(The Captain saves Esteban from suicide and speaks these words to him, just before they leave for the bridge. )

 

Commenting on the obvious

There was in them a curious shame in regard to their resemblance. They had to live in a world where it was the subject of continual comment and joking. It was never funny to them, and they suffered the eternal pleasantries with stolid patience.

– Thornton Wilder,- Bridge of San Luis Rey, 44

[They are twins]

 

Like all solitary persons he had invested friendship with a divine glamour: he imagined the people he passed on the street laughing together and embracing when they parted, the people who dined together with so many smiles – you will scarcely believe me, but he imagined that they were extracting from all that congeniality great store of satisfaction.– Thornton Wilder, The bridge of San Luis Rey, 100

 

Watching Thornton Wilder’s Our Town

What hit me really hard that night, though was the character Emily’s farewell in the last scene, after the mourners have gone back down the hill to their village, having buried her. She says, 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 any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?”

– Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake : 21.