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Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams Books

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Camino Real

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Memoirs

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Notebooks

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The Rose Tattoo

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Hard Candy

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Plays

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Related Quotes

“The low-tone clarinet moans. The door upstairs opens again. Stella slips down the rickety stairs in her robe. Her eyes are glistening with tears and her hair loose about her throat and shoulders. They stare at each other. Then they come together with low, animal moans. He falls to his knees on the steps and presses his face to her belly, curving a little with maternity. Her eyes go blind with tenderness as she catches his head and raises him level with her. He snatches the screen door open and lifts her off her feet and bears her into the dark flat.”

DesirePassionAbuse
Book:A Streetcar Named Desire
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“You know, then, that the public Somebody you are when you “have a name” is a fiction created with mirrors and that the only somebody worth being is the solitary and unseen you that existed from your first breath and which is the sum of your actions and so is constantly in a state of becoming under your own volition — and knowing these things, you can even survive the catastrophe of Success!”

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Book:The Catastrophe of Success
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“Laws of silence don't work.... When something is festering in your memory or your imagination, laws of silence don't work, it's just like shutting a door and locking it on a house on fire in hope of forgetting that the house is burning. But not facing a fire doesn't put it out. Silence about a thing just magnifies it. It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant....”

ImaginationSilenceMemoryAvoidanceFestering
Book:Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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“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.”

LoveLifeHappinessLettersBittersweetTennessee Williams
Book:Notebooks
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“Everything that is tearing us down today will become a memory, and this memory will be shared as an anecdote or a story or a poem or a play or a warning. It will be shared with another human being, who will then understand that he is not alone in his sadness. This is why we show up for others and tell our tales and listen to others. The great congregation meets daily, and you are someone’s angel today. (In an Interview with James Grissom)”

InspirationEmpathyMemoryAloneHard TimesAngels
Author:Tennessee Williams
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“The panic disappeared under those soothing old fingers and the breathing slowed down and stopped hurting the chest as if a fox was caught in it, and then at last Mr. Kroger began to lecture the boy as he used to, Pablo, he murmured, don't ever be so afraid of being lonely that you forget to be careful. Don't forget that you will find it sometimes but other times you won't be lucky, and those are the times when you have got to be patient, since patience is what you must have when you don't have luck. ("The Mysteries of the Joy Rio")”

PatienceLuck
Book:American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now
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“I will read long books and the journals of dead writers. I will feel closer to them than I ever felt to people I used to know before I withdrew from the world. It will be sweet and cool this friendship of mine with dead poets, for I won’t have to touch them or answer their questions. They will talk to me and not expect me to answer. And I’ll get sleepy listening to their voices explaining the mysteries to me. I’ll fall asleep with the book still in my fingers, and it will rain.”

ReadingLiteratureBooksSolitudeWords
Book:27 Wagons Full of Cotton and Other Plays
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“The rest of my days I'm going to spend on the sea. And when I die, I'm going to die on the sea. You know what I shall die of? I shall die of eating an unwashed grape. One day out on the ocean I will die--with my hand in the hand of some nice looking ship's doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch. "Poor lady," they'll say, "The quinine did her no good. That unwashed grape has transported her soul to heaven.”

Death
Book:A Streetcar Named Desire
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“You should not have too many people waiting on you, you should have to do most things for yourself. Hotel service is embarrassing. Maids, waiters, bellhops, porters and so forth are the most embarrassing people in the world for they continually remind you of inequities which we accept as the proper thing. The sight of an ancient woman, gasping and wheezing as she drags a heavy pail of water down a hotel corridor to mop up the mess of some drunken overprivileged guest, is one that sickens and weighs upon the heart and withers it with shame for this world in which it is not only tolerated but regarded as proof positive that the wheels of Democracy are functioning as they should without interference from above or below. Nobody should have to clean up anybody else’s mess in this world. It is terribly bad for both parties, but probably worse for the one receiving the service.”

HumanityDemocracySocietyCapitalismInequalityThe Catastrophe Of Success
Author:Tennessee Williams
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“He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something -sub-human -something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something - ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in - anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is - Stanley Kowalski - survivor of the Stone Age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here - waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night! - you call it - this party of apes! Somebody growls - some creature snatches at something - the fight is on! God! Maybe we are a long way from beng made in God's image, but Stella - my sister - there has been some progress since then! Such things as art - as poetry and music - such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tendered feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march towards what-ever it is we're approaching . . . Don't - don't hang back with the brutes!”

EvolutionAbusePrimitivePrimalRegressionApeBlanche DuboisApe LikeStanley Kowalski
Book:A Streetcar Named Desire
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“True? Yes, I suppose-unfit somehow-anyway.... So I came here. There was nowhere else I could go. I was played out. You know what played out is? My youth was suddenly gone up the water-sprout, and-I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed some-body, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle-a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in! But I guess I was asking, hoping-too much! Kiefaber, Stanley and Shaw have tied an old tin can to the tail of the kite.”

Blanche Dubois
Author:Tennessee Williams
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“El objetivo de su vida, desde su adolescencia, es el placer con las mujeres, que da y recibe, no con indulgente ligereza sino con el orgulloso poder de un gallo de buen plumaje en un corral de gallinas. De esta satisfecha plenitud derivan todos los cardes secundarios de su vida: amistad con los hombres, humor rudo y directo, amor a la buena mesa y a la buena bebida, al juego, a su coche, a su radio, a todo cuanto posee y lleva por ello la impronta orgulloso del sembrador. Valora las mujeres al primer vistazo, las clasifica sexualmente y les dedica la sonrisa justa.”

VidaMujeresPlacer
Book:A Streetcar Named Desire
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“TOM: Slušaj! Misliš da ludujem za skladištem? Misliš da sam zaljubljen u tvornicu cipela Kontinental? Misliš da želim provesti pedeset i pet godina u onoj prostoriji od celoteksa s' fluorescentnim cijevima? Više bih volio da mi netko maljem razbije glavu i prospe mozak nego da se onamo vraćam svakoga jutra! A ipak idem! Svaki put kad mi uđeš u sobu i vikneš ono prokleto:"Ustani i blistaj! Ustani i blistaj!" - ja kažem samome sebi: "Blago mrtvima!" A ipak ustajem! I idem! Za šezdeset i pet dolara mjesečno odričem se svega što bih želio raditi i biti! A ti kažeš da sam sebičan... da uvijek mislim samo na sebe. Čuj me, majko, da mislim na sebe, učinio bih ono što je on učinio - OTIŠAO BIH! Što dalje moguće! Ne diraj me, majko! AMANDA: Kamo ćeš? TOM: Idem u kino! AMANDA: Ne vjerujem u tu laž! TOM: Idem u jazbine gdje se puši opijum! Da, majko, u jazbine, u jazbine poroka gdje se sastaju kriminalci. Pridružio sam se Hoganovoj bandi, ja sam plaćeni ubojica, nosim automat u kutiji za violinu! Upravljam nizom bordela! Zovu me Koljač, Koljač Vingfield, živim dvostrukim životom, majko, danju sam običan pošteni namještenik u skladištu, a noću svemoćni car podzemlja! Zalazim u kockarnice, za ruletnim stolom rasipam silna bogatstva! Preko oka nosim crni ovoj i stavljam lažni brk, katkad stavljam zelenu bradu i brkove. Tada me zovu El Diablo! Mogao bih ti ispričati takve stvari da ne bi mogla oka sklopiti! Moji neprijatelji namjeravaju dići ovu kuću u zrak. Oni će nas jedne noći otpremiti u nebeske visine!”

Rant
Book:The Glass Menagerie
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“I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it in a way that will be understandable to anyone who is not a neurotic. I will try. All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire a thing or to love a thing intensely is to place yourself in a vulnerable position, to be a possible, if not a probable, loser of what you most want. Let's leave it like that. That block has always been there and always will be, and my chance of getting, or achieving, anything that I long for will always be gravely reduced by the interminable existence of that block.”

Writing
Author:Tennessee Williams
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“I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do--then go ahead and do it with ease. Don't maul, don't suffer, don't groan till the first draft is finished. A play is a pheonix and it dies a thousand deaths. Usually at night. In the morning it springs up again from its ashes and crows like a happy rooster. It is never as bad as you think, it is never as good. It is somewhere in between, and success or failure depends on which end of your emotional gamut concerning its value it approaches more closely. But it is much more likely to be good if you think it is wonderful while you are writing the first draft. An artist must believe in himself. Your belief is contagious. Others may say he is vain, but they are affected.”

Writing
Book:Notebooks
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“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!”

AudienceMovementAdventureActivityHollywoodSpectatorsMoviesPassivityWatchingVicarious ExperienceVicarious Doings
Book:The Glass Menagerie
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