Maggie, we're through with lies and liars in this house. Lock the door.
I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights that those who seem fragile and desperate for connection often possess true strength.
In this quote, Tennessee Williams reflects on the complexity of human emotions, particularly in individuals who may appear weak or hysterical. He suggests that these characters, often overwhelmed by their fears and desires for connection, embody a deeper resilience and strength, challenging traditional notions of what it means to be strong. This insight invites readers to empathize with those who struggle emotionally and to recognize the fortitude it takes to confront life's challenges and seek meaningful relationships.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a mental health awareness speech to highlight the strength of individuals who struggle with emotional challenges.
More from Tennessee Williams
All quotes →Time rushes towards us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
Show me a person who hasn´t known any sorrow and I´ll show you a superficial.
Success and failure are equally disastrous.
The rest of my days I'm going to spend on the sea. And when I die, I'm going to die on the sea. You know what I shall die of? I shall die of eating an unwashed grape. One day out on the ocean I will die — with my hand in the hand of some nice-looking ship's doctor, a very young one with a small blond moustache and a big silver watch.
Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.
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All people have a natural desire to be needed, to have their importance to others tangibly confirmed.
No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.
If a person says or does something that we consider offensive, our first obligation is to refuse to take offense and then communicate privately, honestly, and directly with that individual. Such an approach invites inspiration from the Holy Ghost and permits misperceptions to be clarified and true intent to be understood.
I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.
I told him the truth, that I loved him and didn't regret anything about our lives together. But do we ever 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God' as my father used to say, to those we love? Or even to ourselves? Don't even the best and most fortunate of lives hint at other possibilities, at a different kind of sweetness and, yes, bitterness too? Isn't this why we can't help feeling cheated, even when we know we haven't been?