Quotes By Tennessee Williams

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.

To be free is to have achieved your life.

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

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

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

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

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

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

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

The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!

Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.

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

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.

You can be young without money but you can't be old without it.

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

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

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

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?

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.

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.

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.

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

For time is the longest distance between two places.

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.