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I think time is a merciless thing. I think life is a process of burning oneself out and time is the fire that burns you.

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
Life
Eternity
Oneself
Fire
Process
Thing
Time
Merciless
Think
Burns
Thinking
Burning

More quotes by Tennessee Williams

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My '60s plays were as good as most of the other plays I've written ... except I wasn't in a condition to refine them, to help in the rehearsal, or do anything. I was hardly conscious of what was going on except during the hours of the day when I was actually writing ... and that was with the aid of speed.
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Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?
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Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.
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Only animals have to satisfy instincts! Surely your aims are somewhat higher than theirs! Than monkeys! Pigs!
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.
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I don't have an audience in mind when I write. I'm writing mainly for myself. After a long devotion to playwriting I have a good inner ear. I know pretty well how a thing is going to sound on the stage, and how it will play. I write to satisfy this inner ear and its perceptions. That's the audience I write for.
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In human character, simplicity doesn't exist except among simpletons.
Tennessee Williams
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Mexico is the front door to South America - and the back door to the states.
Tennessee Williams
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Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!
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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.
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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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In all these years, you never believed I loved you. And I did. I did so much. I did love you. I even loved your hate and your hardness.
Tennessee Williams
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I'm tired and it's taking an increasing amount out of me, more than I have to give physically. And that's why I want to move to Sicily and buy that little farm and raise a flock of goats and geese. I find it peaceful ... and it would be a nice way to end life.
Tennessee Williams
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Somebody said once or wrote, once: 'We're all of us children in a vast kindergarten trying to spell God's name with the wrong alphabet blocks!
Tennessee Williams
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Walls are built up between people a hell of a damn sight faster than--broken down.
Tennessee Williams
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Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.
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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And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this-kitchen-candle.
Tennessee Williams
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Young, gifted, and destitute.
Tennessee Williams
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For there was a conspiracy of dullness in the world, a universal plan to shut out the resurgences of spirit which might interfere with clockwork. Better to keep your elevation unseen until it is higher than strangers' hands can reach to pull you down to their level.
Tennessee Williams