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Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.

Tennessee Williams

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Tennessee Williams
Age: 70 †
Born: 1914
Born: March 26
Died: 1985
Died: February 25
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Screenwriter
Writer
Columbus
Mississippi
Thomas Lanier Williams III
Thomas Lanier Williams
Thomas Williams
Surprise
Gives
Take
Giving
World
Resistance

More quotes by Tennessee Williams

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I know all about the tyranny of women.
Tennessee Williams
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The human animal is a beast that dies but the fact that he’s dying don’t give him pity for others.
Tennessee Williams
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The work of a writer, his continuing work, depends for breath of life on a certain privacy of heart.
Tennessee Williams
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Marriage is an economic arrangement in many ways, let's face it.
Tennessee Williams
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I gave up visiting my psychoanalyst because he was meddling too much in my private life.
Tennessee Williams
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Physical beauty is passing - a transitory possession - but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart - I have all these things - aren't taken away but grow! Increase with the years!
Tennessee Williams
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Switch clicking off in my head, turning the hot light off and the cool night on and — [He looks up, smiling sadly.] — all of a sudden there's—peace!
Tennessee Williams
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If people behaved in the same way nations do they would all be put in straitjackets.
Tennessee Williams
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Something in me will save me from utter ruin no matter what comes.
Tennessee Williams
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When I write I don't aim to shock people, and I'm surprised when I do. But I don't think that anything that occurs in life should be omitted from art, though the artist should present it in a fashion that is artistic and not ugly. I set out to tell the truth. And sometimes the truth is shocking.
Tennessee Williams
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There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.
Tennessee Williams
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Animals have sections in their stomachs which enable them to digest food without mastication, but human beings are supposed to chew their food before they swallow it down... So chew your food and give your salivary glands a chance to function!
Tennessee Williams
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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
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Don't you think there is always something unspoken between two people?
Tennessee Williams
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I don't ask for your pity, but just your understanding - no, not even that -no. Just for your recognition of me in you, and the enemy, time, in us all.
Tennessee Williams
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When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
Tennessee Williams
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Young, gifted, and destitute.
Tennessee Williams
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What shouldn't you do if you're a young playwright? Don't bore the audience! I mean, even if you have to resort to totally arbitrary killing on stage, or pointless gunfire, at least it'll catch their attention and keep them awake. Just keep the thing going any way you can.
Tennessee Williams
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Youth must be wanton, youth must be quick, Dance to the candle while lasteth the wick.
Tennessee Williams
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Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.
Tennessee Williams