Quotes from Tennessee Williams

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

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

For love I make characters in plays.

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?

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.

Everyone says he's sincere, but everyone isn't sincere. If everyone was sincere who says he's sincere there wouldn't be half so many insincere ones in the world and there would be lots, lots, lots more really sincere ones!

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

Make voyages - Attempt them - there's nothing else...

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.

The world is a funny paper read backwards. And that way it isn't so funny.

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

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

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.

If I got rid of my demons, I'd lose my angels.

Time is the longest distance between two places.

I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?

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.

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

I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!

A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages.

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Don't you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour - but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands - and who knows what to do with it?

How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.

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