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Tennessee Williams Quotes

Playwright

American playwright, renowned for his profound psychological portrayals and unique dramatic style. His notable works include 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and 'The Glass Menagerie'.

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All Writing People World Ifs Cat On A Hot Tin Roof Knows Menagerie Thinking Way Play Life Men Giving Time Heart Want Love Believe Blanche Humans

Famous Tennessee Williams Quotes

“Margaret: And why so many allusions have been made to Rainbow Hill lately. You know what Rainbow Hill is? Place that's famous for treatin' alcoholics an' dope fiends in the movies! Brick: I'm not in the movies. Margaret: No, and you don't take dope. Otherwise you're a perfect candidate for Rainbow Hill, Baby, and that's where they aim to ship you - over my dead body!”

Play Humor Family Power Drama Comdey

Book:Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“Yes, we all use each other and that's what we think of as love, and not being able to use each other is what's--hate....”

Love Play Hate Summer Last Suddenly Tennessee Williams

Book:Suddenly Last Summer

Source: Suddenly Last Summer

“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.”

Knows Writing Mind Wells Long Play Sound Audience Stage Perception Ears Devotion Playwriting

Author:Tennessee Williams

“The process by which the idea for a play comes to me has always been something I really couldn't pinpoint. A play just seems to materialize; like an apparition, it gets clearer and clearer and clearer. It's very vague at first, as in the case of Streetcar, which came after Menagerie. I simply had the vision of a woman in her late youth. She was sitting in a chair all alone by a window with the moonlight streaming in on her desolate face, and she'd been stood up by the man she planned to marry.”

“It is, perhaps more than anything else, the arrest of time which has taken place in a completed work of art that gives certain plays their feeling of depth and significance.”

Giving Art Play Feelings Certain Taken Depth Significance Works Of Art Completed Work

Book:The Rose Tattoo

Source: The Rose Tattoo

“Oh, I haven't reached any peak. I hit the bottom in the '60s. When a certain actress undertook the leading role in a recent play of mine, she referred to me as "that old derelict." Not to my face, but behind my back.”

Play Faces Certain Behinds Roles Havens Mines Bottom Actresses Behind My Back Derelict

Author:Tennessee Williams

“My '60s plays were as good as most of the other plays I've written ... except I wasn't in a condition to refine them, to help in the rehearsal, or do anything. I was hardly conscious of what was going on except during the hours of the day when I was actually writing ... and that was with the aid of speed.”

Writing Play Helping Hours Written Conditions Conscious Speed Aids Rehearsal

Author:Tennessee Williams

“For a creative person there's just as much pleasure in writing an eight-line poem as there is in writing a blockbuster play ... of the old '50s type.”

Writing Persons Play Lines Pleasure Creative Type Eight Creative Person Blockbuster

Author:Tennessee Williams

“I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.”

Ifs Play Night Failure Negative Theatre Get Back Reviews Compelled Typewriters Back To Work

Author:Tennessee Williams

“Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.”

Should Play Character Left Deals Mystery Theatre Revelations

Book:New Selected Essays: Where I Live

Source: New Selected Essays: Where I Live

“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.”

Source: New Selected Essays: Where I Live

“William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.”

Writing Heart Play Loss Return Clock Purity Theme Opposition Slipping Time Of Your Life Slipping Away

Book:The Glass Menagerie

Source: The Glass Menagerie

“Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!”

Men Play Given Lovers Instinct Fighter Hunters Warehouse Menagerie

Book:The Glass Menagerie

Source: The Glass Menagerie

“Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental. It is not realistic.”

Play Memories Realistic Sentimental

Book:The Glass Menagerie

Source: The Glass Menagerie

“I’m a poet. And then I put the poetry in the drama. I put it in short stories, and I put it in the plays. Poetry’s poetry. It doesn’t have to be called a poem, you know.”

Knows Play Stories Poet Drama Short Story

Book:The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams

Source: The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams

“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.”

Way Writing Believe Play I Believe Easy Ease Convince

Book:Notebooks

Source: Notebooks

About the Author

Born: March 26, 1911
Died: February 25, 1983
Known for: Playwright
Quotes: 315

Books & Sources

The Glass MenagerieRelated source material

The Theatre of Tennessee WilliamsRelated source material

A Streetcar Named DesireRelated source material

Cat on a Hot Tin RoofRelated source material

New Selected Essays: Where I LiveRelated source material

Camino RealRelated source material

Collected StoriesRelated source material

Conversations with Tennessee WilliamsRelated source material

MemoirsRelated source material

NotebooksRelated source material

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