Tennessee Williams Quotes

Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 3. Blanche says this to Mitch in an intimate moment between the two. This is after he shares the story of the silver cigarette case given him by a dying girl with an inscription from a Browning love poem. Blanche is saying that people who have felt sorrow in their lives are more sincere. However, her words are ironic. For while Blanche has felt the sorrow of losing a husband, she is playing the part of an innocent women with Mitch, while covering up a scandalous and promiscuous past.
Long rainy afternoons in New Orleans

Don’t you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour – but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands – and who knows what to do with it?

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 5. Blanche’s romanticized description of rainy afternoons in New Orleans uses poetic language, emphasizing her educated background and social class. She is speaking here to a young man collecting money for a newspaper. In a beautiful metaphor she likens an hour to a piece of eternity dropping into your hand. The passage reflects the writer Williams’s own passion for New Orleans, which he regarded as his "spiritual home," to quote his own words.

Sometimes – there’s God – so quickly!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 6. Blanche sobs as she utters this exclamation when she is embraced by Mitch and they share a kiss. Amid the fear of growing old and alone and haunted by her troubled past, Blanche suddenly sees hope and redemption for herself. She has just shared the story of her tragic marriage with Mitch who responded with a display of affection for her. Blanche yearns for a man to protect her from the harshness of the world around her. When she finds herself loved by Mitch, she sees him as that protector and answer to her prayers.

I am not a Polack. People from Poland are Poles, not Polacks. But what I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it, so don’t ever call me a Polack.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 8. Stanley snaps angrily at Blanche after she makes derogatory remarks about his ethnicity, calling him a "Polack, without a nerve in your body." He responds to her insult implying she is superior to him and he is lower in the class system, by proudly declaring that he is a born and bred American.

I don’t want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don’t tell truth. I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! – Don’t turn the light on!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 9. Using a metaphor, Blanche says that she doesn’t want realism and truth, but desires the magic of illusion and make-believe. Preferring the world of dreams, she pleads with Mitch not to turn the light on. As well as wanting to hide her aging appearance, she does not want her real character and secrets exposed to the light of reality.

What he wants is my companionship. Having great wealth sometimes makes people lonely! A cultivated woman, a woman of intelligence and breeding, can enrich a man’s life – immeasurably! I have those things to offer, and this doesn’t take them away. Physical beauty is passing. A transitory possession. But beauty of the mind and richness of the spirit and tenderness of the heart – and I have all of those things – aren’t taken away, but grow! Increase with the years! How strange that I should be called a destitute woman! When I have all of these treasures locked in my heart. I think of myself as a very, very rich woman! But I have been foolish – casting my pearls before swine!

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 10. Blanche explains to Stanley what her old college boyfriend Shep Huntleigh wants from her and what she has to offer him in return. She tries to convince Stanley that there is more to a woman than physical beauty and appearance. Blanche may be a fading beauty who is financially impoverished, but in her fantasy world she believes that the married Texas oil millionaire will want her for her beautiful spirit and mind. Her speech is a deluded hymn to herself, where in a metaphor she compares such riches she has to offer to treasures. When she uses the animal metaphor "casting my pearls before swine" she admits to foolishly giving what she has to offer to those who don’t appreciate it. Her use of "pearls" and "swine" link to the theme of social class and Blanche’s social snobbery. Stanley takes the animal imagery as a personal insult.

Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

– Tennessee Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, Scene 11. Blanche depends on strangers to fill the void she has felt in her life ever since her husband committed suicide. She acknowledges this in her final words in the play, spoken to the Doctor. There is a double irony in what she tells him. For sadly the Doctor is not the gallant Shep Huntleigh she was hoping would come to rescue her. Far from being her rescuer, the Doctor is about to take her to a mental asylum. Also the strangers in her life have been kind to her only in exchange for sex, or they have abused and abandoned her. This shows how delusional and detached from reality Blanche is and is now completely immersed in her fantasy world.
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