Tennessee Williams: Trending quotes

Tennessee Williams trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection

Tennessee Williams: 278 quotes202 likes

“Living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone, if the one that you love doesn't love you.”

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Other Plays

“A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.”

“I don't believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me.”

Tennessee Williams

“We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.”

Tennessee Williams Orpheus Descending

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) <br class="br">Orpheus Descending (1957)

“The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”

Tennessee Williams Camino Real

Source: Camino Real

“I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.”

Tennessee Williams Sweet Bird of Youth

Source: Sweet Bird of Youth

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”

Tennessee Williams The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

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

“All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.”

Tennessee Williams The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore

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

“I suppose I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.”

Tennessee Williams

“When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.”

Tennessee Williams Camino Real

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)

“Since that day, when people have spoken to me of "genius", I have felt the inside pocket to make sure my wallet's still there.”

Tennessee Williams

Source: Memoirs

“I hope to die in my sleep, when the time comes, and I hope it will be in the beautiful big brass bed in my New Orleans apartment, the bed which is associated with so much love.”

Tennessee Williams

“These are the intensities that one cannot live with, that he has to outgrow if he wants to survive. But who can help grieving for them? If the blood vessels could hold them, how much better to keep those early loves with us?”

Tennessee Williams

Source: Collected Stories

“The 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.”

Tennessee Williams Orpheus Descending

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)

“Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.”

Tennessee Williams

“People go to the movies instead of moving!”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

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!

“Don't you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour - but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands - and who knows what to do with it?”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

“Security is a kind of death.”

Tennessee Williams

“All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

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