Tom, Scene Three
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Quotes from work
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister Laura. In writing the play, Williams drew on an earlier short story, as well as a screenplay he had written under the title of The Gentleman Caller.
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
Tom, as Narrator, in Scene One
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
“Why you're not crippled, you just have a little defect — hardly noticeable, even!”
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!
“I'm tired of the movies and I am about to move!”
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!
Amanda, Scene One
The Glass Menagerie (1944)
“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!
“All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.”
Amanda, Scene Six
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
“In memory everything seems to happen to music.”
Tom (As Narrator Scene One)
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
“For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye….”
Tom, Scene Seven
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! — for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles Laura — and so goodbye…
“I didn't go to the moon, I went much further—for time is the longest distance between two places”
Variant: Time is the longest distance between two places.
Source: The Glass Menagerie
