Tennessee Williams

Miss Fellowes is a highly moral person. If she ever recognized the truth about herself it would destroy her.

I just cut loose one of God's creatures at the end of his rope.

So that one of God's creatures could be free from panic, and scamper home safe and free. A little act of grace, Maxine.

I want to explain something to you... A man has got just so much in his emotional bank balance. Mine has run out. It's stone dry. I can't draw a check on it. There's nothing left to draw out.

I thought you were sexless. But you've just become a woman. You know how I know that? Because you, not me, are taking pleasure in my being tied up. All women, whether they want to face it or not, want to see a man in a tied-up situation. They spend their lives trying to get a man into a tied-up situation. Their lives are fulfilled when they can get a man or as many men as they can, into a tied-up situation.

You better go now, Miss Fellowes, the party's over. Right now I'm no longer in a position to discharge my responsibility of protecting you. A responsibility from which you discharged me. Just go, Miss Fellowes. Just go.

Nothing could be worse for a girl in your unstable condition, to be mixed up with a man in, in my unstable condition because two people in unstable conditons are like two countries facing each other in unstable conditons. The, eh, destructive potential, eh, could blow the whole world to bits!

Maxine, don't rob me of the credit for my own small accomplishments.

You can't go on all alone. Think of how it will feel after so many years.

There's no need for the shawl. God has played God, and set him free.

The Fantastic Level and the Realistic Level are the two levels upon which we live.

It's very serious. The child is emotionally precocious.

Also, she is traveling under the wing of a military escort of a butch vocal teacher.

And what do you respect in me, Miss Thin Standing-up Female Buddha?

I can get down the hill, Maxine, but I'm not too sure about getting back up.

I said to this girl, I said, "Let us, let us kneel down and pray together." And we did. We knelt. And then all of the sudden the - kneeling position turned into a reclining position.

I wonder how long it takes to sweat the faculty of a Baptist Female College out of a bus that's parked in the sun when it's a 100 degrees in the shade.

You're as dangerous as you are young and lovely. And it's you're being young and lovely that makes you so dangerous, that gives you this destructive potential over a destructible man.

I wonder as we examine our hearts together, in this place set aside for worship, how many of us here can say, "I rule my own spirit." For, how weak is man? How often do we - how often - how often do we stray from the straight and narrow? For only when we abide in the Lord are we like cities without walls. Only then can we defend ourselves against Satan and his temptations. We cannot rule ourselves alone.

I will not and cannot continue to conduct services in praise and worship of this angry, petulant old man in whom you believe. You've turned your backs on the God of love and compassion and invented for yourselves this cruel, senile, delinquent who blames the world and all that he created for his own faults! Close your windows. Close your doors! Close your hearts - against the truth of our God!

No. Yes. No. No. It should be licensed. I mean, at least until you're old enough for a - a driver's license. Now, you get out of my room. Would you get off my bed! I-I'll keep my eyes shut until you've gone out of my room.

Yes. No! I mean, yes. Yes. Lord, lead me not unto temptation. Now, go on home and find my way all by myself.

I thought Fred could tame them. He was a fisherman and I've got a busload of man-eating sharks.

Maxine, you got to help me with her, honey. She's not only trying to get me fired, she's also trying to pin on me a rape charge, a charge of statutory rape.

That's when a man is seduced by a girl under 20.

All right. We'll play God tonight, like kids play houses with old broken crates and boxes. We'll cut the damn lizard loose so he can go back to his bushes, cause God won't do it and we are playing God here tonight.

Men with men's hearts. Wild and free hearts of men. They knew hunger and they fed their appetites. They fed their appetites! Appetites that I have inherited! I defy you! Shannon defies you! Get out your tomahawks! Get out your scalping knives! Sharpen your scalping knives. Scalp me!

The pain we cause him. We've poisoned his atmosphere. We've slaughtered his creatures of the wild. We've polluted his rivers. We've even taken God's noblest creation, Man, and - and brainwashed him into becoming our own product, not God's.

I think that's the one with the leaky roof which you won't find out about until it rains and then it'll be too late to do anything about it except to swim out of it.

Iguanas - giant lizards native to this part of Mexico. It is alleged they taste like chicken.

Hey, STELLA!

Now that's how I'm gonna clear the table. Don't you ever talk that way to me. 'Pig,' 'Pollack,' 'disgusting,' 'vulgar,' 'greasy.' Those kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister's tongue just too much around here. What do you think you are? A pair of queens? Now just remember what Huey Long said - that every man's a king - and I'm the King around here, and don't you forget it.

Take a look at yourself here in a worn-out Mardi Gras outfit, rented for 50 cents from some rag-picker. And with a crazy crown on. Now what kind of a queen do you think you are? Do you know that I've been on to you from the start, and not once did you pull the wool over this boy's eyes? You come in here and you sprinkle the place with powder and you spray perfume and you stick a paper lantern over the light bulb - and, lo and behold, the place has turned to Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile, sitting on your throne, swilling down my liquor. And do you know what I say? Ha ha! Do you hear me? Ha ha ha!

I am not a Pollack. People from Poland are Poles. They are not Pollacks. But what I am is one hundred percent American. I'm born and raised in the greatest country on this earth and I'm proud of it. And don't you ever call me a Pollack.

I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told, and there's some of them that give themselves credit for more than they've got.

Listen, baby, when we first met - you and me - you thought I was common. Well, how right you was. I was common as dirt. You showed me a snapshot of the place with them columns, and I pulled you down off them columns, and you loved it, having them colored lights goin'. And wasn't we happy together? Wasn't it all okay till she showed here? And wasn't we happy together? Wasn't it all OK? Till she showed here. Hoity-toity, describin' me like a ape.

She moved to the hotel called Flamingo which is a second class hotel that has the advantages of not interfering with the private and social life of the personalities there. Now the Flamingo is used to all kinds of goings-on. But even the management of the Flamingo was impressed by Dame Blanche. And in fact, they were so impressed that they requested her to turn in her room-key for permanently. And this, this happened a couple of weeks before she showed here... The trouble with Dame Blanche was that she couldn't put on her act any more in Oriel because they got wised up. And after two or three dates, they quit and then she goes on to another one, the same old line, the same old act, and the same old hooey. And as time went by, she became the town character, regarded not just as different but downright loco and nuts. She didn't re. sign temporarily because of her nerves. She was kicked out before the spring term ended. And I hate to tell you the reason that step was taken. A seventeen-year-old kid she got mixed up with - and the boy's dad learned about it and he got in touch with the high-school superintendent. And there was practically a town ordinance passed against her.

How about a few more details on that subject… Let's cop a gander at the bill of sale… What do you mean? She didn't show you no papers, no deed of sale or nothin' like that?… Well then, what was it then? Given away to charity?… Oh I don't care if she hears me. Now let's see the papers… Now listen. Did you ever hear of the Napoleonic code, Stella?… Now just let me enlighten you on a point or two… Now we got here in the state of Louisiana what's known as the Napoleonic code. You see, now according to that, what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband also, and vice versa… It looks to me like you've been swindled baby. And when you get swindled under Napoleonic code, I get swindled too and I don't like to get swindled… Where's the money if the place was sold?

I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?

What's that smell in this room? Didn't you notice it, Brick? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?

There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity!

This was what my father left me, this lousy old suitcase! And on the inside was nothing, nothing but his uniform from the Spanish-American war. That was his legacy to me! Nothing at all! And I built this place from nothing.

He was a hobo, the best-known tramp on the boxcar circuit. He'd worked once in awhile as a field hand, and I'd tag along. Sat on my bare bottom in the dirt, waiting for him. Outside of hunger, the first thing I remember is shame. I was ashamed of that miserable old tramp. I was riding boxcars with him when I was nine, something you never had to do. You'll never have to bury me the way I buried him. I buried him in a meadow alongside a railroad track. He was running to catch a freight and his heart give out. You know something? That old tramp died laughing.

But it's always there in the mornin', ain't it? The truth and it's here right now! You're just feeling sorry for yourself; that's all it is! Self-pity!You didn't kill Skipper. He killed himself. You and Skipper and millions like you are living in a kids' world. Playing games, touchdowns, no worries, no responsibilities. Life ain't no damn football game. Life ain't just a buncha high spots.You're a thirty-year-old kid. Soon you'll be a fifty-year-old kid. Pretendin' you're hearin' cheers when there ain't any. Dreamin' and drinkin' your life away. Heroes in the real world live twenty-four hours a day, not just two hours in a game. Mendacity! You won't...You won't live with mendacity? Well, you're an expert at it! The truth is pain and sweat and payin' bills and makin' love to a woman that you don't love any more. Truth is dreams that don't come true, and nobody prints your name in the paper 'til you die.

It'll kill the senses too! You… you got pain - at least you know you're alive. It's easin' somewhat now. When you got pain, it's better to judge yourself of a lot of things. I'm not gonna stupify myself with that stuff. I wanna think clear. I want to see everything, and I want to feel everything. Then I won't mind goin'. I've got the guts to die. What I want to know - do you have the guts to live?

The human animal is a beast that must die. If he's got money, he buys and buys and buys everything he can, in the crazy hope one of those things will be life-everlasting, which it can never be. I've suddenly noticed you don't call me Big Daddy anymore. If you needed a big daddy, why didn't you come to me? If you needed someone to lean on, why Skipper? Why not me? I'm your father! Why didn't you come to your kinfolk, the people that love you?

I'm gonna pick me a choice woman and I'm gonna smother her in minks and choke her with diamonds. Boy, I'm gonna be happy.

Would ya look at all this stuff? Bought most of it when I took your mother to Europe on that Cook's Tour. Never had such a lousy time in my life. I tell you that Europe ain't nothin' but a wore-out auction, just a great big fire sale, the whole rotten thing. Boy, Big Mama just wild in it, and she just bought and bought and bought. Sure is lucky I'm a rich man, yes, sirree, sure is lucky. Got any idea how much I'm worth, son? Ask Gooper. He knows. He knows to the penny 'less I missed my guess. Close on ten million dollars in cash and blue chip stocks besides twenty-eight thousand of the richest acres this side of the Valley Nile.

You can be young without money, but you can't be old without it.

Maggie the cat is alive. I'm alive.

We've still got one thing on our side. No, two things. Are my seams straight? Big Daddy dotes on you, Brick. He can't stand Brother Man and Brother Man's wife. That fertility monster, she's downright odious to him, I can tell. That's the second thing we've got on our side. He likes me. The way he looks me up and down and over, he's still got an eye for girls.

Did anybody ever tell you you're a back-aching Puritan, Brick? I think it's a fine thing that a man on the doorstep of death can still look at a woman like me with what I call deserved appreciation.

You're a drinker and i'm childless.

Did you ever hear so many dogs' names tagged on to children?

Thank you for keeping still, for backing me up in my lie.

No? Well you're right, Mother. I'm going to opium dens. Yes, mother. Opium dens. Dens of vice and criminal's hangouts, mother, I am a hired assassin, I joined the Hogan gang, I carry a tommy gun in a violin case, and I run a stream of cat houses in the valley, they call me Killer, Killer Wingfield, see I'm leading a double life, really, a simple honest warehouse worker by day, but by night a dynamic czar of the underworld, mother, I just go to gambling casinos, spin away fortune on the roulette tables, mother, I wear a patch over one eye, and a false moustache and sometimes I put on green whiskers, on, on those occasions, they call me "El Diablo," I can tell you many things to make you sleepless, mother, my enemies plan to dynamite this place, they're gonna blow us sky high! And I will be glad? I will be very happy, and so will you be. You will go up, up, up, over Blue Mountain, on a broomstick with seventeen gentleman callers! You ugly, babbling old witch!

Oh, I could tell you things to make you sleepless! My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They're going to blow us all sky-high some night! And will I be glad, will I be happy, and so will you be! And you'll go up, up, up! over Blue Mountain on a broomstick, with your seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly, babbling old witch!

Every morning that you come in, yelling that goddamned "Rise and shine, rise and shine," I think to myself, how lucky dead people are.