Williams, Tennessee quotes

1914-1983 American Dramatist

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

There is a time for departure even when there s no certain place to go.
Williams, Tennessee
Change

The most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for brother. It s inflammatory.
Williams, Tennessee
Brotherhood

It is almost as if you were frantically constructing another world while the world that you live in dissolves beneath your feet, and that your survival depends on completing this construction at least one second before the old habitation collapses.
Williams, Tennessee
Creativity

We 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.
Williams, Tennessee
Crisis

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
Williams, Tennessee
Frankness

We re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.
Williams, Tennessee
Humankind

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

Oh, Jacques, we re used to each other, we re a pair of captive hawks caught in the same cage, and so we ve grown used to each other. That s what passes for love at this dim, shadowy end of the Camino Real.
Williams, Tennessee
Love

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

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.
Williams, Tennessee
Memory

We re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life!
Williams, Tennessee
Isolation

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death s the other.
Williams, Tennessee
Lies and Lying

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.
Williams, Tennessee
Loneliness

In memory everything seems to happen to music.
Williams, Tennessee
Memory

The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that s also a hypocrite!
Williams, Tennessee
Hypocrisy

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
Williams, Tennessee
Strangers

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.
Williams, Tennessee
Motivation

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.
Williams, Tennessee
Success

Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
Williams, Tennessee
Time and Time Management

You can be young without money but you can t be old without it.
Williams, Tennessee
Money

Success and failure are equally disastrous.
Williams, Tennessee
Success

For time is the longest distance between two places.
Williams, Tennessee
Time and Time Management

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.
Williams, Tennessee
Suspicion

I can t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.
Williams, Tennessee
Sensitivity

Everyone says he s sincere, but everyone isn t sincere. If everyone was sincere who says he s sincere there wouldn t be half so many insincere ones in the world and there would be lots, lots, lots more really sincere ones!
Williams, Tennessee
Sincerity

Don t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you ll know you re dead.
Williams, Tennessee
Suffering

You said, They re harmless dreamers and they re loved by the people. -- What, I asked you, is harmless about a dreamer, and what, I asked you, is harmless about the love of the people? Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams.
Williams, Tennessee
Revolutions and Revolutionaries

Bohemia has no banner. It survives by discretion.
Williams, Tennessee
Bohemia

You ve got many refinements. I don t think you need to worry about your failure at long division. I mean, after all, you got through short division, and short division is all that a lady ought to be called on to cope with.
Williams, Tennessee
Women