Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams IIIwas an American playwright and author of many stage classics. Along with Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller he is considered among the three foremost playwrights in 20th-century American drama...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth26 March 1911
CountryUnited States of America
god atheism mythology
All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent.
teaching writing men
If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.
character writing desire
I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.
life reality grace
A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.
funny life motivational
You can be young without money but you can't be old without it.
artist creative age
The nervous system of any age or nation is its creative workers, its artists. And if that nervous system is profoundly disturbed by its environment, the work it produces will inescapably reflect the disturbances, sometimes obliquely and sometimes with violent directness.
hate believe taken
I don't believe in "original sin." I don't believe in "guilt." I don't believe in villains or heroes - only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents. 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.
believe writing play
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.
grieving blood want
These are the intensities that one cannot live with, that he has to outgrow if he wants to survive. But who can help grieving for them? If the blood vessels could hold them, how much better to keep those early loves with us?
jobs doors office
The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one's office for a job.
nice ocean doctors
The rest of my days I'm going to spend on the sea. And when I die, I'm going to die on the sea. You know what I shall die of? I shall die of eating an unwashed grape. One day out on the ocean I will die--with my hand in the hand of some nice looking ship's doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch. "Poor lady," they'll say, "The quinine did her no good. That unwashed grape has transported her soul to heaven.
baby wine two
You see, baby, after a glass or two of wine I’m inclined to extravagance.
magic fleeting eternity
Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.
heart writing loss
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!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.