Quotes from book
The Catastrophe of Success

Name: The Catastrophe of Success
Author: Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

"The Catastrophe of Success" is an essay by Tennessee Williams about art and the artist's role in society. It is often included in paper editions of The Glass Menagerie.A version of this essay first appeared in The New York Times, November 30, 1947, four days before the opening of A Streetcar Named Desire . Another version of this essay, titled "A Streetcar Named Success" is sometimes used as an introduction to A Streetcar Named Desire.

“The sort of life which I had previous to this popular success was one that required endurance, a life of clawing and scratching along a sheer surface and holding on tight with raw fingers to every inch of rock higher than the one caught hold of before, but it was a good life because it was the sort of life for which the human organism is created. I was not aware of how much vital energy had gone into this struggle until the struggle was removed. I was out on a level plateau with my arm still thrashing and my lungs still grabbing at air that no longer resisted. This was security at last. I sat down and looked about me and was suddenly very depressed.”

Tennessee Williams book The Catastrophe of Success

page 15
The Catastrophe of Success (1945)