Tennessee Williams Quotes

I go on writing so that I will always have something to read.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy that kind of process.

I write what I write and I honestly don't care if it gets on or not. I'm writing to see if I can find out some of what I think about any number of situations. I work it out in the writing.

I'm attracted to good writing. When I read the page and I know what we're after and where we're headed, and I'm fortunate enough to respect that idea and am able to pitch myself toward that, that feels like the culmination of everything that I've spent my life trying to do, since I played that tree in that play in third grade.

The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.

I got really into writing plays. I did that for years and years and got some produced and didn't like it as much when I wasn't able to control it.

The best thing about being an artist, instead of a madman or someone who writes letters to the editor, is that you get to engage in satisfying work. Even if you never publish a word, you have something important to pour yourself into.

For many playwrights, they write the plays anyway because they've got to be, the work has been started, it's got to be finished, but we all long, I think, to see the plays fleshed out on stage and I'm exactly like that. Yes, I'm not satisfied until I actually see it on stage.

I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.

I have never written for an audience. On the other hand I do not write merely to please myself.

I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

I'd always fantasized about writing a new play. Even when I had all this success in television, what I was daydreaming about in my dressing room is that one day I would do it.

Now my drug is writing or acting, being creative.

I write and have done so primarily for personal pleasure.

We all take from our artistic endeavors what we as individuals need, to make the process unique and fulfilling to ourselves.

When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It has to be worth it even if no one reads it.

When you walk off the stage, I think the end point is that you enjoyed yourself. I get to say that almost every time - either I made a few new fans or something resonated.

I think I prefer writing books because the work of art begins and ends with you - it's easier to know if you're doing it right, as opposed to writing a play and then waiting around for somebody else to complete it.

As authors, we know that it is very difficult to unleash one's creativity.

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.

I try not to think about the idea of reaching more and more people, because once you get in that mindset, I think you lose the point of why you're doing it in the first place. Still, the best feeling I ever get is when I finish a song, and it exists, and it didn't exist before, and now it's there, and it makes me feel a certain way.

It's funny how that comes up, because sometimes I'll write something and I'll think, I don't know if that's a film or a play, and then other things I feel very strongly about them just being plays - they feel very theatrical to me.

It takes so long to write a script, thinking to yourself, "Am I wasting my time? Am I putting everything into this thing that maybe just won't ever exist?" I always think, God, acting is so much easier. At least for acting you have the source material already.

In a way I do hate the process of writing. It's like learning a role where you never think you're going to be able to conquer it when you start and it just takes enough focus and narrowing and getting enthusiastic and not losing it and so on. It's never good enough, but you aim for something and you hope it comes somewhat close. But it is a pleasure once you have written it.

On the whole, I don't want to think too much about why I write what I write. If I know what I'm doing ... I can't do it.