Tennessee Williams Quotes

Don't write your books for people who won't like them. Give yourself wholly to the kind of book you want to write, and don't try to please readers who like something different.

If you start to just aim for what the audience wants to hear, you're already hamstrung because you don't have any freedom.

If I knew anything about what people wanted and was popular, I'd still be writing for 'Saturday Night Live'. I can only write what I want, and hopefully people will like it.

I can only say that I myself wrote always as I wished, without a tremendous desire to find the latest thing possible.

If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.

I don't know how to write without thinking what people would want. You don't know whether they want you to be black or white, so you kind of get a gray, something in the middle.

It is fatal to decide, intellectually, what good poetry is because you are then in honour bound to try to write it, instead of the poems that only you can write.

Write what you think is good, is the whole of the law.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

The fun thing about song writing is that it's just creative. It can be whatever you want it to be. For me, I'm really protective of that. I'm not going to write something because I feel like it fits here or it fits there - I just want to write music that feels good to me, you know?

I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, and if you're afraid it's going to upset someone, don't publish it.

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers.

I think the moment you start trying to please a fan base is when you start going downhill. I'm going to always, always write about what I want, even if it doesn't necessarily cater to most of them.

Too many people focus on writing what they think they should write, what should be in a song, what radio would want.

I write the novels that are possible for me to write, not that ones I think will come across in a certain light.

Write the story you need to tell and want to read. It's impossible to know what others want, so don't waste time trying to guess.

If you're a painter, you don't go, 'Abstract's really selling, so that's what I'm going to do.' If you're really truly an artist, you have to think what you're meant to paint.

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else.

I just always make honest music. I just always kinda do what I wanna do.

I am not bothered with whether my characters are conventional or not. Because I am not in this for the designer labels and the autographs.

I can only do music if I can do it the way I can do it.

You can filter certain stuff - it depends what artist you are - but you're never going to be true to yourself if you're worried about what other people think.

When I can make music and don't have to think about anyone else's ideas or voice - when I'm making something that only I can make - it feels good. It's nice when you can find a sound that only you can make. No one else can make 'Cosmogramma.' No one else can make 'Until the Quiet Comes.'