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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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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
Born
Refers
Three
Giant
Live
Giants
Come
Questions
Going
Shadow
Mark
Question
Dies

More quotes by Tennessee Williams

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I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.
Tennessee Williams
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attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.
Tennessee Williams
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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!
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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Not facing a fire doesn't put it out.
Tennessee Williams
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There is no pleasure in the world like writing well and going fast. It's like nothing else. It's like a love affair, it goes on and on, and doesn't end in marriage. It's all courtship.
Tennessee Williams
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An artist must believe in himself - Possibly not so passionately as Lawrence - but passionately. Your belief is contagious. Others say - He is vain - but they are affected.
Tennessee Williams
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Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.
Tennessee Williams
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Don'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 Williams
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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.
Tennessee Williams
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It 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 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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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
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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!
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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The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.
Tennessee Williams
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Show me a person who hasn´t known any sorrow and I´ll show you a superficial.
Tennessee Williams
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The helpless can't help the helpless.
Tennessee Williams
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Oh, I haven't reached any peak. I hit the bottom in the '60s. When a certain actress undertook the leading role in a recent play of mine, she referred to me as that old derelict. Not to my face, but behind my back.
Tennessee Williams
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If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.
Tennessee Williams