Tennessee Williams Quotes

Time is the longest distance between two places.

Time doesn't take away from friendship, nor does separation.

There's a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.

-The little comfort of love?-Is that comfort so little?-Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for.

When things don't change, their sameness becomes an accretion. That is why all society puts on flesh. Succumbs to the cubicles and begins to fill them.

I’ve been accused of having a death wish but I think it’s life that I wish for, terribly, shamelessly, on any terms whatsoever.

You have a spark of anarchy in your spirit and that's not to be tolerated. Nothing wild or honest is tolerated her! It has to be extinguished...

A drinking man's someone who wants to forget he isn't still young and believing

To you, whoever you are, when I am gone — remember to be kind tonight to some lonely person. For me.

The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words: "Hello - Goodbye!" and no address.

I know! WHY! – Am I so catty? – Cause I’m consumed with envy an’ eaten up with longing? –

She lives in a world of her own – a world of – little glass ornaments…

I go to the movies because – I like adventure. Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work, so I go to the movies.

I don't ask for your pity, but just for your understanding – not even that – no. Just for some recognition of me in you, and the enemy, time, in us all.

When you look at a piece of delicately spun glass you think of two things: how beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.

I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.

All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent

Of course, you were crowned with laurel in the beginning, your gold hair was wreathed with laurel, but the gold is thinning and the laurel has withered. Face it – pitiful monster.

...love, all at once and much, much too completely. It's like you suddenly turn a blinding light on something that had always been half a shadow...

What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?—I wish I knew... Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can...

Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos.

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

Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal.

We have to distrust each other. It's our only defense against betrayal.

What's talent but the ability to get away with something?

He was always running or bounding, never just walking. He seemed always at the point of defeating the law of gravity.

Luck is believing your lucky.

...the human animal is a selfish beast...

...human beings dream of life everlasting. But most of them want it on earth and not in heaven.

Ignorance of mortality is a comfort.

Don't look forward to the day when you stop suffering. Because when it comes you'll know you're dead.

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.

There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.

I wrote because I had to. I couldn't stop. There wasn't anything else I could do. If no one ever bought anything anything I ever did I'd still be writing. It's beyond a compulsion.

We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins for life.

High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it.... Success is shy-it won't come out while you're watching.

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.

I don't ask for your pity but just your understanding - no not even that -no. Just for your recognition of me in you and the enemy time in us all.

When I stop [working] the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm working.

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death's the other.

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.