Tennessee Williams People Quotations

All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.

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.

I'm much more conscious of historical events since the '60s. In the '60s, I was insulated by my own addictions, my own lifestyle, from what was going on in the world. After I recovered I was amazed at certain people who had died. I hadn't noticed that they had gone. Not friends ... I'm talking about public figures who had passed away.

If people behaved in the same way nations do they would all be put in straitjackets.

Oh you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you

Why, man alive, Laura! Just look about you a little. What do you see? A world full of common people! All of 'em born and all of em' going to die! Which of them has one-tenth of your good points! Or mine! Or anyone else's, as far as that goes - gosh! Everybody excels in some one thing. Some in many!

Val: Why do you go out there? Sandra: Because dead people give such good advice. Val: What advice do they give? Sandra: Just one word- live!

Since that day, when people have spoken to me of "genius", I have felt the inside pocket to make sure my wallet's still there.

People go to the movies instead of moving.

Don't you think there is always something unspoken between two people?

We are all civilized people, wich means that we are all savages at heart but observing a few amenities of civilized behaviour.

Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?

I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!

There are no 'good' or 'bad' people. Some are a little better or a little worse, but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice. A blindness to what is going on in each other's hearts...

People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are.

Only some radical change can divert the downward course of my spirit, some startling new place or people to arrest the drift, the drag.

Of course you always had that detached quality as if you were playing a game without much concern over whether you won or lost, and now that you've lost the game, not lost but just quit playing, you have that rare sort of charm that usually only happens in very old or hopelessly sick people, the charm of the defeated.

You said, 'They’re harmless dreamers and they’re loved by the people.' 'What,' I asked you, 'is harmless about a dreamer, and what,' I asked you, 'is harmless about the love of the people? Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams.