Quotes from work
Summer and Smoke

Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene 1948 play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled Chart of Anatomy when Williams began work on it in 1945. The phrase "summer and smoke" probably comes from the Hart Crane poem "Emblems of Conduct" in the 1926 collection White Buildings. After a disappointing Broadway run in 1948, the play was a hit Off-Broadway in 1952. In 1964, Williams revised the play as The Eccentricities of a Nightingale.

“You'll be surprised how infinitely merciful they are. The prescription number is 96814. I think of it as the telephone number of God!”

Tennessee Williams Summer and Smoke

Alma, Scene Twelve
Summer and Smoke (1948)

“Eternity!—Didn't it give you the cold shivers?”

Tennessee Williams Summer and Smoke

Alma, Prologue
Summer and Smoke (1948)

“The tables have turned, yes, the tables have turned with a vengeance! You've come around to my old way of thinking and I to yours like two people exchanging a call on each other at the same time, and each one finding the other one gone out, the door locked against him and no one to answer the bell!”

Tennessee Williams Summer and Smoke

Alma, Scene Eleven
Summer and Smoke (1948)