Tennessee Williams Quotes

Tennessee Williams (born Thomas Lanier Williams) was an American playwright who received many of the top theatrical awards for his works of drama. He moved to New Orleans in 1939 and changed his name to "Tennessee", the state of his father's birth.
(1911 - 1983)

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

A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. [Nature]

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

All good art is an indiscretion.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

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

Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.

Don't look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you'll know you're dead. [Adversity]

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life. [Enthusiasm]

For time is the longest distance between two places.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

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

I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action. [Action]

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. [Time]

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. [Adversity]

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

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.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don't regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.