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"I don't believe in "original sin." I don't believe in "guilt." I don't believe in villains or heroes - only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents. This is so simple I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm sure it's true. In fact, I would bet my life on it! And that's why I don't understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in."
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"Sitting makes us think of standingOur current stance keeps on demanding We wish to fly without the wings Puppets move before pulling the strings."

"The leaves of hopes which have destined words in the body of the thought have settled to the ground. This is the world."

"The world will see true peace when there are no boundaries of religion and the religion of all will be pure unconditional love."

"Don't be imprisoned by others perception of reality."

"We imagine always when we speak that it is our own ears, our own mind, that are listening."

"... the objects which we admire have no absolute value in themselves..."

"To wit, existence is communication and communication is existence."

"We cannot escape our origins, however hard we try, those origins which contain the key -could we but find it- to all we later become."

"Ideally a book would have no order in it, and the reader would have to discover his own."
Explore more quotes by Tennessee Williams


"What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains."


"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."


"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?"


"I think that [William] Faulkner and I each had to escape certain particulars of our lives, and we found salvation through words. I understand the Bible story of Babel so much better now. I think that moments of extremity, desires of escape, lead us to foreign languages--not those learned in schools, but those plucked from the human heart, the searing conditions of isolation. I did not have to be limited to my biography because of words, and I shared this with Faulkner, who invented new words and punctuation and expression and worlds. He utterly reshaped the world."


"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."
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