533 Quotes by Tennessee Williams


  • Author Tennessee Williams
  • Quote

    It's hard enough for me to write what I want to write without me trying to write what you say they want me to write which I don't want to write.

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  • Author Tennessee Williams
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    You've got many refinements. I don't think you need to worry about your failure at long division. I mean, after all, you got through short division, and short division is all that a lady ought to be called on to cope with.

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  • Author Tennessee Williams
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    An artist must believe in himself. Your belief is contagious. Others may say he is vain, but they are affected.

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  • Author Tennessee Williams
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    I'm not in sympathy with Communism except for populations which are in a state of peasantry, actually hungry and starving. The ideal state for me is some form of Socialism, which doesn't yet exist, as far as I know, which doesn't repress the arts, or any race. Consequently I'm not a political person ... except that I'm a revolutionary.

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  • Author Tennessee Williams
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    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.

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  • Author Tennessee Williams
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    Jim lights a cigarette and leans indolently back on his elbow smiling at Laura with a warmth and charm which lights her inwardly with altar candles.

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  • Author Tennessee Williams
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    I'm tired and it's taking an increasing amount out of me, more than I have to give physically. And that's why I want to move to Sicily and buy that little farm and raise a flock of goats and geese. I find it peaceful ... and it would be a nice way to end life.

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