Tennessee Williams Quotes

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

This is the subtitle of the play
Source: Stairs to the Roof (1941)

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: Memoirs

Tom, Scene Six
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Yes, movies! Look at them — All of those glamorous people — having adventures — hogging it all, gobbling the whole thing up! You know what happens? People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses! Everyone's dish, not only Gable's! Then the people in the dark room come out of the dark room to have some adventures themselves — Goody, goody! — It's our turn now, to go to the south Sea Island — to make a safari — to be exotic, far-off! — But I'm not patient. I don't want to wait till then. I'm tired of the movies and I am about to move!

The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)

Quoted in "Tennessee Williams" in Profiles (1990) by Kenneth Tynan (first published as a magazine article in February 1956)

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Val ( Act 2, Scene 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=oOhF2S_tsIoC&q=%22We're+all+of+us+sentenced+to+solitary+confinement+inside+our+own+skins+for+life%22&pg=PA33#v=onepage)
Orpheus Descending (1957)

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: The Glass Menagerie

To vary that old, old saying a little bit — I married no planter! I married a man who worked for the telephone company!
Amanda, Scene Six
The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: The Glass Menagerie

Tom (As Narrator Scene One)
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Amanda, Scene Six
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: "The Past, the Present and the Perhaps," http://books.google.com/books?id=mTRaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+future+is+called+perhaps+which+is+the+only+possible+thing+to+call+the+future+And+the+important+thing+is+not+to+allow+that+to+scare+you%22&pg=PA7#v=onepage introduction to Orpheus Descending (1957)

Source: Collected Stories

Don Quixote in Prologue
Variant: When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
Source: Camino Real (1953)

Christopher
Source: The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963)

Source: Sweet Bird of Youth

Source: Camino Real

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Other Plays

Amanda, Scene One
The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Tom, Scene Six
The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Yes, movies! Look at them — All of those glamorous people — having adventures — hogging it all, gobbling the whole thing up! You know what happens? People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses! Everyone's dish, not only Gable's! Then the people in the dark room come out of the dark room to have some adventures themselves — Goody, goody! — It's our turn now, to go to the south Sea Island — to make a safari — to be exotic, far-off! — But I'm not patient. I don't want to wait till then. I'm tired of the movies and I am about to move!

Camino Real (1953)
Context: You said, "They're harmless dreamers and they're loved by the people." — "What," I asked you, "is harmless about a dreamer, and what," I asked you, "is harmless about the love of the people? — Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams."

Program notes for a Pasadena Playhouse production of Stairs to the Roof (1947)
Context: When I look back at Stairs to the Roof... I see its faults very plainly, as plainly as you may see them, but still I do not feel apologetic about this play. Unskilled and awkward as I was at this initial period of my playwriting, I certainly had a moral earnestness which I cannot boast of today, and I think that moral earnestness is a good thing for any times, but particularly for these times. I wish I still had the idealistic passion of Benjamin Murphy! You may smile as I do at the sometimes sophomoric aspect of his excitement, but I hope you will respect, as I do, the purity of his feeling and the honest concern which he had in his heart for the basic problem of mankind, which is to dignify our lives with a certain freedom.

Amanda, Scene Two
The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Why you're not crippled, you just have a little defect — hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it — develop charm — and vivacity — and — charm!

Source: Camino Real

Tom, as Narrator, in Scene One
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Source: Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Variant: Memory takes a lot of poetic licence. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. The interior is therefore rather dim and poetic.
Source: The Glass Menagerie

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Tom, Scene Three
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: The Glass Menagerie

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: Collected Stories

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: Battle of Angels

Source: The Glass Menagerie

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire