Ignorance of mortality is a comfort.

— Tennessee Williams

I go to the movies because – I like adventure. Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work, so I go to the movies.

— Tennessee Williams

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.

— Tennessee Williams

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.

— Tennessee Williams

I know! WHY! – Am I so catty? – Because I’m consumed with envy an’ eaten up with longing? –

— Tennessee Williams

I'll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misinterpret things to them. Furthermore, I don't tell the truth. Furthermore, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! - Don't turn the light on!

— Tennessee Williams

In human character, simplicity doesn't exist except among simpletons.

— Tennessee Williams

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

— Tennessee Williams

I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it in a way that will be understandable to anyone who is not a neurotic. I will try. All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire a thing or to love a thing intensely is to place yourself in a vulnerable position, to be a possible, if not a probable, loser of what you most want. Let's leave it like that. That block has always been there and always will be, and my chance of getting, or achieving, anything that I long for will always be gravely reduced by the interminable existence of that block.

— Tennessee Williams

I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.

— Tennessee Williams