Tennessee Williams

If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.

Jim lights a cigarette and leans indolently back on his elbow smiling at Laura with a warmth and charm which lights her inwardly with altar candles.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people and with violent material. I don't regret having concerned myself with such people, because I think that most of us are disturbed.

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.

All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.

Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else.

A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don't regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

Openings come quickly, sometimes, like blue space in running clouds. A complete overcast, then a blaze of light.

These are the intensities that one cannot live with, that he has to outgrow if he wants to survive. But who can help grieving for them? If the blood vessels could hold them, how much better to keep those early loves with us?

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.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that's true of everyone, don't you?

Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.

You can be young without money but you can't be old without it.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

To be free is to have achieved your life.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

Kill off all my demons and my angels might die too.