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Tennessee Williams QUOTES

Tennessee Williams QUOTES

101 " 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

102 " 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

103 " I never met a woman that didn’t know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and some of them give themselves credit for more than they’ve got. "

― Tennessee Williams , A Streetcar Named Desire

104 " I never was hard or sell-sufficient enough. When people are soft--soft people have got to shimmer and glow--they've got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a-- paper lantern over the light.... It isn't enough to be soft. You've got to be soft and attractive. And I--I'm fading now! I don't know how much longer I can turn the trick. "

― Tennessee Williams , A Streetcar Named Desire

105 " The world is violent and mercurial--it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love--love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love. "

― Tennessee Williams

106 " At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable. "

― Tennessee Williams

107 " Mendacity is a system that we live in," declares Brick. "Liquor is one way out an'death's the other. "

― Tennessee Williams , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

108 " There is only one true aristocracy . . . and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls! "

― Tennessee Williams

109 " Miss Collins: That's the picture, the one in the silver frame up there on the mantle. We cooled the watermelon in the springs and afterwards played games. She hid somewhere and he took ages to find her. It got to be dark and he hadn't found her yet and everyone whispered and giggled about it and finally they came back together- her hangin' on to his arm like a common little strumpet- and Daisy Belle Huston shrieked out, "Look, everyboy, the seat of Evelyn's skirt!" It was-covered with-grass stains! Did you ever hear of anything outrageous? "

― Tennessee Williams ,

110 " Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see each other in life."

[As quoted in Elia Kazan's autobiography, A Life (1988)] "

― Tennessee Williams

111 " Nothing human disgusts me . . . unless it's cruel, violent. (spoken by the character Hannah Jelkes) "

― Tennessee Williams , The Night of the Iguana

112 " This play is dedicated to the memory of Clarence Darrow, The Great Defender, whose mental frontiers were the four corners of the sky. "

― Tennessee Williams , Not About Nightingales

113 " Maggie, we're through with lies and liars in this house. Lock the door. "

― Tennessee Williams , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

114 " Show me a person who hasn´t known any sorrow and I´ll show you a superficial. "

― Tennessee Williams , A Streetcar Named Desire

115 " I am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. Coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow. I have been very happy lately, just wallowing in it selfishly, knowing it will not last very long, which is all the more reason to enjoy it now. I suppose life always ends badly for almost everybody. We must have long fingers and catch at whatever we can while it is passing near us. "

― Tennessee Williams , Notebooks

116 " Most people's lives—what are they but trails of debris, each day more debris, more debris, long, long trails of debris with nothing to clean it all up but, finally, death. "

― Tennessee Williams , Suddenly Last Summer

117 " If I could just give myself to the steady peace of the rain. That lovely steady peace. "

― Tennessee Williams

118 " BRICK [to the moon]: I envy you--you cool son of a bitch. "

― Tennessee Williams , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

119 " I can't guarantee that a lobotomy would stop her—babbling!! "

― Tennessee Williams , Suddenly Last Summer

120 " Sevdiğin biriyle birlikte yaşamak daha da büyük yalnızlık… tamamen yalnız kalmaktan daha büyük yalnızlık! Eğer sevdiğin kişi seni sevmiyorsa… "

― Tennessee Williams , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof