You can be young without money, but you can’t be old without it.
Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.
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?
Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.
Don’t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.
Mendacity is a system that we live in,” declares Brick. “Liquor is one way out an’death’s the other.
It was useless trying to explain to Cecila that poetry wasn’t a commodity, that it could never be bought or sold, that it was, in fact, unteansferrable, remaining forever a part of the one who wrote it.
When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.
Time doesn’t take away from friendship, nor does separation.
There’s a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.
When things don’t change, their sameness becomes an accretion. That is why all society puts on flesh. Succumbs to the cubicles and begins to fill them.
I’ve been accused of having a death wish but I think it’s life that I wish for, terribly, shamelessly, on any terms whatsoever.
You have a spark of anarchy in your spirit and that’s not to be tolerated. Nothing wild or honest is tolerated her! It has to be extinguished…
Somebody said once or wrote, once: ‘We’re all of us children in a vast kindergarten trying to spell God’s name with the wrong alphabet blocks!
A drinking man’s someone who wants to forget he isn’t still young and believing
Chance, you’ve gone past something you couldn’t afford to go past; your time, your youth, you’ve passed it. It’s all you had and you’ve had it.
To you, whoever you are, when I am gone — remember to be kind tonight to some lonely person. For me.
The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words: “Hello – Goodbye!” and no address.
When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
I know! WHY! – Am I so catty? – Cause I’m consumed with envy an’ eaten up with longing? –
She lives in a world of her own – a world of – little glass ornaments…
The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a fire-escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation.
There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.
You’ll be surprised how infinitely merciful they [these tablets] are. The prescription number is 96814. I think of it as the telephone number of God!
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.
I don’t ask for your pity, but just for your understanding – not even that – no. Just for some recognition of me in you, and the enemy, time, in us all.
When you look at a piece of delicately spun glass you think of two things: how beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.
All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.
I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.
All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent
Of course, you were crowned with laurel in the beginning, your gold hair was wreathed with laurel, but the gold is thinning and the laurel has withered. Face it – pitiful monster.
…love, all at once and much, much too completely. It’s like you suddenly turn a blinding light on something that had always been half a shadow…
CORNELIA: -Sit down. Don’t leave the table.GRACE: -Is that an order?CORNELIA: -I don’t give orders to you, I make requests.GRACE: -Sometimes the requests of an employer are hard to distinguish from orders. [She sits down]
What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?—I wish I knew… Just staying on it, I guess, as long as she can…
Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos.
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?
Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see each other in
We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.
The theatre is a place where one has time for the problems of people to whom one would show the door if they came to one’s office for a job.
I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.
We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.
Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama.
We have to distrust each other. It is our only defence against betrayal.
We have to distrust each other. It’s our only defense against betrayal.
What’s talent but the ability to get away with something?
He was always running or bounding, never just walking. He seemed always at the point of defeating the law of gravity.
It would be one of those evenings when lady luck showed the bitchy streak in her nature
In human character, simplicity doesn’t exist except among simpletons.
…human beings dream of life everlasting. But most of them want it on earth and not in heaven.
The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.
Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.
Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable.–Blanche Dubois
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.
Don’t look forward to the day when you stop suffering. Because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.
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.
A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.
There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.
There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.
Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
I can’t stand a naked light bulb any more than I can stand a rude remark or a vulgar action.
I wrote because I had to. I couldn’t stop. There wasn’t anything else I could do. If no one ever bought anything anything I ever did I’d still be writing. It’s beyond a compulsion.
We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins for life.
High station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.
Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it…. Success is shy-it won’t come out while you’re watching.
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.
Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.
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.
When I stop [working] the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m working.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? . . . the chandelier . . . it reminds me of mushroom soup.
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.
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.
Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an death’s the other.
For time is the longest distance between two places.
You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.
Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.
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.
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.