“I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“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...”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“In all these years, you never believed I loved you. And I did. I did so much. I did love you. I even loved your hate and your hardness.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“I'm not living with you. We occupy the same cage. (Maggie)”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you--gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of--and I can! I'm determined to do it--and nothing's more determined than a cat on a tin roof--is there?”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Time goes by so fast. Nothin' can outrun it. Death commences too early--almost before you're half-acquainted with life--you meet the other.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“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.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Maggie, we're through with lies and liars in this house. Lock the door.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“It's like a switch, clickin' off in my head. Turns the hot light off and the cool one on, and all of a sudden there's peace.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“My only point, the only point that I'm making, is life has got to be allowed to continue even after the dream of life is--all--over....”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“The human animal is a beast that dies but the fact that he’s dying don’t give him pity for others.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“How long does it have to go on? This punishment? Haven't I done time enough, haven't I served my term? can't I apply for a-pardon?”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Laws of silence don't work....
When something is festering in your memory or your imagination, laws of silence don't work, it's just like shutting a door and locking it on a house on fire in hope of forgetting that the house is burning. But not facing a fire doesn't put it out. Silence about a thing just magnifies it. It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant....”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“No, truth is something desperate, an' she's got it. Believe me, it's something desperate, an' she's got it.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“A drinking man's someone who wants to forget he isn't still young and believing”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“I’m not good. I don’t know why people have to pretend to be good, nobody’s good.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“My head don't work any more and it's hard for me to understand how anybody could care if he lived or died or was dying or cared about anything but whether or not there was liquor left in the bottle and so I said what I said without thinking. In some ways I'm no better than the others, in some ways worse because I'm less alive. Maybe it's being alive that makes them lie, and being almost not alive that makes me sort of accidentally truthful--I don't know but--anyway--we've been friends...And being friends is telling each other the truth...”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“And so tonight we're going to make the lie true, and when that's done, I'll bring the liquor back here and we'll get drunk together, here, tonight, in this place that death has come into...”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“human beings dream of life everlasting, that's the reason! But most of them want it on earth and not in heaven.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“I'm a rich man, Brick, yep, I'm a mighty rich man. Y'know how much I'm worth? Guess, Brick! Guess how much I'm worth! Close to ten million in cash an' blue chip stocks, outside, mind you, of twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile! But a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life with it when his life has been spent, that's one thing not offered in the Europe fire-sale or in the American markets or any markets on earth, a man can't buy his life with it, he can't buy back his life when his life is finished...
Big Daddy: (pp. 65)”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Margaret: Oh you weak people, you weak, beautiful people! - who give up. What you want is someone to [she turns out the rose-silk lamp] take hold of you. Gently, gently, with love! And I do love you, Brick, I do!
Brick [smiling with charming sadness]: Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Big Daddy: What makes you so restless, have you got ants in your britches?
Brick: Yes, sir...
Big Daddy: Why?
Brick: - Something - Hasn't - Happened...
Big Daddy: Yeah? What is that?
Brick [sadly]: - the click...
Big Daddy: Did you say the click?
Brick: Yes, click.
Big Daddy: What click?
Brick: A click that I get in my head that makes me peaceful
Big Daddy: I sure in hell don't know what you're talking about, but it disturbs me.
Brick: It's just a mechanical thing.
Big Daddy: What is a mechanical thing?
Brick: This click that I get in my head that makes me peaceful. I got to drink till I get it.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“When something is Festering on your memory or in your imagination, laws of silence don't work, it's just like shutting a door and locking it on a house on fire in hope of forgetting that the house is burning. But not facing a fire doesn't put it out. Silence about a thing just magnifies it. It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant...”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“We mustn't scream at each other, the walls in this house have ears...”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“Big Daddy: Ignorance - of mortality - is a comfort.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“I know! WHY! – Am I so catty? – Cause I’m consumed with envy an’ eaten up with longing? –”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
About the author
Tennessee Williams
Born place: in Columbus, Mississippi, The United States
Born date March 26, 1911
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