MITCH: You lied to me, Blanche.
BLANCHE: Don’t say I lied to you.
MITCH: Lies, lies, inside and out, all lies.
BLANCHE: Never inside, I didn’t lie in my heart.
– Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 9. After learning of her sordid past, Mitch strips away Blanche’s pretensions of being a refined schoolteacher. He accuses her of lying to him about her murky past. But Blanche believes that her lying is acceptable because she says she didn’t lie in her heart. This is part of world of illusions she inhabits, where people live lives of fantasies, and this is completely excusable so long as what they feel inside is true. Blanche, who believes her own lies and has fully retreated into the real of fantasy, begins her descent into madness.