40 Vivid Quotes by Tennessee Williams

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Scene Eleven, Page 179

In memory everything seems to happen to music.The Glass Menagerie (1944), Scene I, Page 5

I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Scene Three, Page 60

Time is the longest distance between two places.The Glass Menagerie (1944), Scene VII, Page 123

The violets in the mountains can break the rocks if you believe in them and allow them to grow!Camino Real (1953), Block Ten, Page 97

Luck is believing you’re lucky.A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Scene Eleven, Page 163

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an’ death’s the other…Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Act Two, Page 111

All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent.The Night of the Iguana (1961), Act Two, Page 55

The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one’s office for a job.The Interview with Kenneth Tynan (Februrary 1956)

All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.The Glass Menagerie (1944), Scene VI, Page 64

The future is called ‘perhaps’, which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.The Past, Present and Perhaps (New York Times, March 17, 1957)

We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going!Period of Adjustment (1960), Act I, Page 17

We’re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.Camino Real (1953), Block Twelve, Page 113

Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963), Scene Five, Page 68

If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.Playboy Interview: Tennessee Williams by C. Robert Jennings (April 1972)

The human heart would never pass the drunk-test. If you took the human heart out of the human body and put a pair of legs on it and told it to walk a straight line, it couldn’t do it.Period of Adjustment (1960), Act III, Page 68

There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go!Camino Real (1953), Block Eight, Page 78

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.Where I Live: Selected Essays (1978), Page 72

You can be young without money, but you can’t be old without it.Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Act One, Page 38

Everybody is nothing until you love them.The Rose Tattoo (1951), Act One, Scene Six, Page 37

I don’t want realism. I want magic!A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Scene Nine, Page 144

The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. 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 Glass Menagerie (1944), Scene I, Page 3

There’s no better credit-card in the world than driving up at a bank door in a Cadillac limousine.Period of Adjustment (1960), Act I, Page 8

Hate is a thing, a feeling, that can only exist where there is no understanding.Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Forward, Page xi

Silence about a thing just magnifies it.Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Act One, Page 15

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal.Camino Real (1953), Block Ten, Page 96

After all, high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.Memoirs (1975), Chapter 11, Page 252

Time doesn’t take away from true friendship, nor does separation.Memoirs (1975), Chapter 6, Page 98

Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.Where I Live: Selected Essays (1978), Page 113

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going.The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963), Scene Three, Page 38

We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963), Scene Six, Page 85

Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.The Glass Menagerie (1944), The Catastrophe of Success, Page xviii

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness!The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963), Scene One, Page 10

Walls are built up between people a hell of a damn sight faster than – broken down.Period of Adjustment (1960), Act I, Page 19

We are all civilized people, which means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behavior.Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), Forward, Page ix

Men don’t want anything they get too easy. But on the other hand men lose interest quickly.A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Scene Five, Page 94

To be free is to have achieved your life.Memoirs (1975), Chapter 11, Page 230

Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.Camino Real (1953), Block Seven, Page 71

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.Camino Real (1953), Prologue, Page 6

We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life!Orpheus Descending (1957), Act Two, Scene One, Page 31

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.Tehyi Hsieh, Chinese epigrams inside out, and proverbs, 1948