Tennessee Williams

Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?

Then what is good? The obsessive interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, that first made the experience of living something that must be translated into pigment or music or bodily movement or poetry or prose or anything that's dynamic and expressivee--that's what's good for you if you're at all serious in your aims. William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.

The future is called 'perhaps', which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.

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.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.

To be free is to have achieved your life.

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

All good art is an indiscretion.

For time is the longest distance between two places.

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death's the other.

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.

Byron: The luxuries of this place have made me soft.The metal point's gone from my pen, there's nothing left but the feather.Gutman:That may be true.But what can you do about it?Byron:Make a departure.Gutman:From yourself?Byron:From my present self to myself as I used to be!Gutman:That's the furthest departure a man could make!

It's interesting, isn't it? . . . the chandelier . . . it reminds me of mushroom soup.

Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.

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

I don't ask for your pity but just your understanding - no not even that -no. Just for your recognition of me in you and the enemy time in us all.

Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it.... Success is shy-it won't come out while you're watching.