Quote

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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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
Sometimes
Present
Occurs
Writing
Though
Shocking
Think
Artist
Surprised
Thinking
Write
Shock
Life
Tell
Aim
People
Art
Artistic
Truth
Ugly
Anything
Fashion
Omitted

More quotes by Tennessee Williams

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No, truth is something desperate, an' she's got it. Believe me, it's something desperate, an' she's got it.
Tennessee Williams
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We're left alone with each other. We have to creep close to each other and give gentle little nudges with our paws and our muzzles before we can slip into sleep and rest for the next day's playtime.
Tennessee Williams
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For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye. . . .
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.
Tennessee Williams
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People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are.
Tennessee Williams
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Girls that aren't cut out for business careers usually wind up married to some nice man.
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’m a poet. And then I put the poetry in the drama. I put it in short stories, and I put it in the plays. Poetry’s poetry. It doesn’t have to be called a poem, you know.
Tennessee Williams
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Time doesn't take away from true friendship, nor does separation.
Tennessee Williams
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Go, then! Go to the moon-you selfish dreamer!
Tennessee Williams
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For a creative person there's just as much pleasure in writing an eight-line poem as there is in writing a blockbuster play ... of the old '50s type.
Tennessee Williams
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Mendacity is a system that we live in, declares Brick. Liquor is one way out an'death's the other.
Tennessee Williams
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Men don't want anything they get too easy. But on the other hand, men lose interest quickly.
Tennessee Williams
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We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going!
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
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Luck is believing you're lucky.
Tennessee Williams
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Openings come quickly, sometimes, like blue space in running clouds. A complete overcast, then a blaze of light.
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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Nothing's more determined than a cat on a hot tin roof.
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