Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.
Tennessee WilliamsThe 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 WilliamsWhen I was fourteen, my father decided to initiate me into the ways of manhood, and took me to the local whorehouse. The woman spread her legs, and made me look between them. All I could see was something that looked like a dyin' orchid; consequently, I have never been comfortable around women or orchids.
Tennessee WilliamsI don't believe anyone ever suspects how completely unsure I am of my work and myself and what tortures of self-doubting the doubt of others has always given me.
Tennessee WilliamsI'm much more conscious of historical events since the '60s. In the '60s, I was insulated by my own addictions, my own lifestyle, from what was going on in the world. After I recovered I was amazed at certain people who had died. I hadn't noticed that they had gone. Not friends ... I'm talking about public figures who had passed away.
Tennessee WilliamsPeople go to the movies instead of moving. Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them.
Tennessee WilliamsWe lose the magic whenever we stop telling our story and begin to wonder how we're doing, if we're selling it, if the listener likes us. Just tell the story and go on to the next one. All of us are full of stories the world might want to hear.
Tennessee WilliamsMan is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!
Tennessee WilliamsI think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.
Tennessee WilliamsIt's interesting, isn't it? . . . the chandelier . . . it reminds me of mushroom soup.
Tennessee WilliamsThe most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for brother. It's inflammatory.
Tennessee WilliamsIt's to a writer's advantage to contain within himself elements of each sex, or any sex. It's to his advantage because it makes him able to write from the female point of view as well as the male. In some cases, of course, you will find some homosexual writers who can only write from a f - - -'s point of view. But I don't regard myself as a f - - -! Some people may. Also audiences wanted escapism. They don't like too much protest or criticism of their way of life.
Tennessee WilliamsI 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.
Tennessee WilliamsI cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.
Tennessee WilliamsWhen so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
Tennessee WilliamsSnatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.
Tennessee WilliamsThe work of a writer, his continuing work, depends for breath of life on a certain privacy of heart.
Tennessee WilliamsThe panic disappeared under those soothing old fingers and the breathing slowed down and stopped hurting the chest as if a fox was caught in it, and then at last Mr. Kroger began to lecture the boy as he used to, Pablo, he murmured, don't ever be so afraid of being lonely that you forget to be careful. Don't forget that you will find it sometimes but other times you won't be lucky, and those are the times when you have got to be patient, since patience is what you must have when you don't have luck.
Tennessee WilliamsHe was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded.
Tennessee WilliamsThe biggest of all differences in this world is between the ones that had or have pleasure in love and those that haven't and hadn't any pleasure in love, but just watched with sick envy.
Tennessee WilliamsIs a lifetime long enough to hold the regret that I have for that fantastically aborted but crazily sweet love affair?
Tennessee WilliamsWhat is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? - I wish I knew... Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can.
Tennessee WilliamsI know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth. - Blanche Scene II
Tennessee WilliamsWe're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.
Tennessee WilliamsIt's hard enough for me to write what I want to write without me trying to write what you say they want me to write which I don't want to write.
Tennessee Williams-You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to... -To lay her cards out on the table.
Tennessee WilliamsIt is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial. The right condition for him is that in which his work in not only convenient but unavoidable.
Tennessee WilliamsDon't you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour — but a little bit of eternity dropped in your hands — and who knows what to do with it?
Tennessee WilliamsAmerica has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.
Tennessee Williams