Tennessee Williams Quotes

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Tennessee Williams

Profession : Dramatist

Birth : March 26, 1911

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

Tennessee Williams

All good art is an indiscretion.

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.

Tennessee Williams

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

Tennessee Williams

Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.

Tennessee Williams

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

Tennessee Williams

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

Tennessee Williams

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

Tennessee Williams

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

Tennessee Williams

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.

Tennessee Williams

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

Tennessee Williams

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

Tennessee Williams

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.

Tennessee Williams

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.

Tennessee Williams

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

Tennessee Williams

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.

Tennessee Williams

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.

Tennessee Williams

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Tennessee Williams

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.

Tennessee Williams

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?

Tennessee Williams