Quotes from William Inge

People distrust you if you don't play the same games they do, Sonny. It's the same after you grow up.

Oh, believe me. The greatest egos are those which are too egotistical to show just how egotistical they are.

In an article I once wrote on Picnic, I compared a play to a journey, in which every moment should be as interesting as the destination.

I'll be darned if I'd let any man tell me whether I could bob my hair or not. Why, I wouldn't go back to long hair now for anything. Morris says maybe I should take up smoking cigarettes now. Would you believe it, Cora? Women all over Oklahoma City are smoking cigarettes now. Isn't that disgraceful? What in God's name are we all coming to?

Success, it seems to me, would be somewhat meaningless if the play were not a personal contribution. The author who creates only for audience consumption is only engaged in a financial enterprise.

A good author insists on being accepted on his own terms, and audiences must bicker awhile before they're willing to give in. One learns not to be resentful about this condition but to credit it to human nature.

I did some Twelfth Step work down there once before. They put alcoholics right in with the crazy people. It's horrible—these men all twisted and shaking—eyes all foggy and full of pain. Some guy there with his fists clamped together, so he couldn't kill anyone. There was a young man, just a young man, had scratched his eyes out.

I have never heard of a suicide that I expected.

LOLA Oh, no. She's probably going out with Turk tonight. DOC    She's too nice a girl to be going out with a guy like Turk. LOLA I don't know why, Daddy. Turk's nice.

MARIE    (Not sounding exactly cheerful) Mrs. Delaney, I'm expecting a telegram this morning. Would you leave it on my dresser for me when it comes? LOLA Sure, honey. No bad news, I hope. MARIE Oh, no! It's from Bruce. LOLA    (MARIE'S boy friends are one of her liveliest interests) Oh, your boy friend in Cincinnati. Is he coming to see you?

LOLA    I wanted children, too. When I lost my baby and found out I couldn't have any more, I didn't know what to do with myself. I wanted to get a job, but Doc wouldn't hear of it.

COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA was first presented by The Theatre Guild at the Booth Theatre, New York City, on February 15, 1950, with the following cast: (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) DOC Sidney Blackmer MARIE Joan Lorring LOLA Shirley Booth TURK Lonny Chapman POSTMAN Daniel Reed MRS. COFFMAN Olga Fabian MILKMAN ]ohn Randolph MESSENGER Arnold Schulman BRUCE Robert Cunningham ED ANDERSON Wilson Brooks ELMO HUSTON Paul Krauss DIRECTED BY Daniel Mann

In the spring a young man's fancy turns … pretty fancy.

I always envied you, having a husband you could boss.

Oh, yes. I'm terribly smart. Wouldn't it have been nice... to be intelligent?

Scenes An old house in a run-down neighborhood of a Midwestern city.

DOC    (Goes into living room) 'Bout time for Fibber McGee and Molly.

DOC    No Ã¢â'¬Â¦ no, Baby. We should never feel bad about what's past. What's in the past can't be helped. You Ã¢â'¬Â¦ you've got to forget it and live for the present. If you can't forget the past, you stay in it and never get out.

In the kitchen there is a table, center. On it are piled dirty dishes from supper the night before. Woodwork in the kitchen is dark and grimy. No industry whatsoever has been spent in making it one of those white, cheerful rooms that we commonly think kitchens should be.

DOC    Yes, you want to study hard, Marie, learn to be a fine artist some day. Paint lots of beautiful pictures. I remember a picture my mother had over the mantelpiece at home, a picture of a cathedral in a sunset, one of those big cathedrals in Europe somewhere. Made you feel religious just to look at it.

Over a nightdress she wears a lumpy kimono. Her eyes are dim with a morning expression of disillusionment, as though she had had a beautiful dream during the night and found on waking none of it was true. On her feet are worn dirty comfies)

True faith is belief in the reality of absolute values.

Faith always contains an element of risk, of venture; and we are impelled to make the venture by the affinity and attraction which we feel in ourselves.

The object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other people's.