Tennessee Williams: Quotes about people

Tennessee Williams was American playwright. Explore interesting quotes on people.
Tennessee Williams: 278   quotes 202   likes

“People go to the movies instead of moving!”

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 theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job.”

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