Tennessee Williams Quotes
Enjoy the top 332 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Tennessee Williams.
Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.
— Tennessee Williams
All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.
— Tennessee Williams
“Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?”
— Tennessee Williams
Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you
gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of
and I can! I'm determined to do it
and nothing's more determined than a cat on a tin roof
is there?
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
“Caged birds accept each other, but flight is what they long for.”
— Tennessee Williams
“There is only one true aristocracy ... and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!”
— Tennessee Williams
Q.Do you have any positive message, in your opinion?
A.Indeed I do think that I do.
Q.Such as what?
A.The crying, almost screaming, need of a great worldwide human effort to know ourselves and each other a great deal better, well enough to concede that no man has a monopoly on right or virtue any more than any man has a corner on duplicity and evil and so forth. If people, and races and nations, would start with that self-manifest truth, then I think that the world could sidestep the sort of corruption which I have involuntarily chosen as the basic, allegorical theme of my plays as a whole.
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
“The show is over. The monkey's dead!”
— Tennessee Williams
He would die early, since nothing so fair could decline by common degrees in a faded season.
— Tennessee Williams
“I'm not good. I don't know why people have to pretend to be good, nobody's good.”
— Tennessee Williams
“She laughs frequently and wildly and with a sort of precocious, tragic abandon.”
— Tennessee Williams
I believe that the silence of God, the absolute speechlessness of Him is a long, long and awful thing that the whole world is lost because of.
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
“The human animal is a selfish beast ...”
— Tennessee Williams
He was always running or bounding, never just walking. He seemed always at the point of defeating the law of gravity.
— Tennessee Williams
“Did you suppose that fornication was the straight line upwards that I'd been trying to find?”
— Tennessee Williams
“It's no tragedy, Freckles. Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are.”
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day ...
— Tennessee Williams
“His beauty was notable even in a province where the lack of it is more exceptional in a young man.”
— Tennessee Williams
“Ignorance of mortality is a comfort.”
— Tennessee Williams
He always entered the house as though he were entering it with the intention of tearing it down from inside
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
The mountain violets break the rocks.
— Tennessee Williams
“The helpless can't help the helpless.”
— Tennessee Williams
“Mexico is the front door to South America - and the back door to the states ...”
— Tennessee Williams
I don't have an audience in mind when I write. I'm writing mainly for myself. After a long devotion to playwriting I have a good inner ear. I know pretty well how a thing is going to sound on the stage, and how it will play. I write to satisfy this inner ear and its perceptions. That's the audience I write for.
— Tennessee Williams
-You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to ... -To lay her cards out on the table.
— Tennessee Williams
— Tennessee Williams
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