Quotes By Tennessee Williams

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 strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that's true of everyone, don't you?

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.

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.

Luck is believing you're lucky.

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

For time is the longest distance between two places.

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

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

Time rushes towards us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.

We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

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

Most of the confidence which I appear to feel, especially when influenced by noon wine, is only a pretense.

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

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

All good art is an indiscretion.

Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you - gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.

Time is the longest distance between two places.

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

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

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

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.

The most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for brother. It's inflammatory.

Life is an unanswered question, but let's still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.

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.