Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMSWe 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.
More Tennessee Williams Quotes
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A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.
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There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people. Some are a little better or a little worse, but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice.
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It is planned speeches that contain lies or dissimulations, not what you blurt out so spontaneously in one instant.
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This is so simple I’m ashamed to say it, but I’m sure it’s true. In fact, I would bet my life on it! And that’s why I don’t understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in.
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The name of a person you love is more than language.
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Luck is believing you’re lucky.
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We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.
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Guessing isn’t knowing.
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He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.
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Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.
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Time goes by so fast. Nothin’ can outrun it. Death commences too early–almost before you’re half-acquainted with life–you meet the other.
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I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.
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Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.
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The helpless can’t help the helpless.
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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.
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What you need is someone to take hold of you–gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of–and I can! I’m determined to do it–and nothing’s more determined than a cat on a tin roof–is there?
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS -
William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. “In the time of your life–live!”
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Something in me will save me from utter ruin no matter what comes.
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The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.
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And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.
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It is, perhaps more than anything else, the arrest of time which has taken place in a completed work of art that gives certain plays their feeling of depth and significance.
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I can’t expose a human weakness on the stage unless I know it through having it myself.
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Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace.
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I respect a person that has had to fight and howl for his decency.
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I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do, then go ahead and do it with ease.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS -
Time doesn’t take away from true friendship, nor does separation.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS