Quote collection
256 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Why, man alive, Laura! Just look about you a little. What do you see? A world full of common people! All of 'em born and all of em' going to die! Which of them has one-tenth of your good points! Or mine! Or anyone else's, as far as that goes - gosh! Everybody excels in some one thing. Some in many!"
"But since I have a poet's weakness for symbols, I am using this character also as a symbol; he is the long-delayed but always expected something that we live for."
"I wrote because I had to. I couldn't stop. There wasn't anything else I could do. If no one ever bought anything, anything I ever did, I'd still be writing. It's beyond a compulsion."
"A drinking man's someone who wants to forget he isn't still young an' believing."
"Nobody knew my rose of the world but me... I had too much glory. They don't want glory like that in nobody's heart"
"Morning can always be counted on to bring us back to a more realistic level."
"Personal lyricism is the outcry of prisoner to prisoner from the cell in solitary where each is confined for the duration of his life."
"You take it for granted that I am in something that I want to get out of."
"Well, honey, a shot never does a coke any harm!"
"I saw that it was all over, put away in a box like a doll no longer cared for, the magical intimacy of our childhood together"
"Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?"
"I'm not in sympathy with Communism except for populations which are in a state of peasantry, actually hungry and starving. The ideal state for me is some form of Socialism, which doesn't yet exist, as far as I know, which doesn't repress the arts, or any race. Consequently I'm not a political person ... except that I'm a revolutionary."
"I'm tired and it's taking an increasing amount out of me, more than I have to give physically. And that's why I want to move to Sicily and buy that little farm and raise a flock of goats and geese. I find it peaceful ... and it would be a nice way to end life."
"My '60s plays were as good as most of the other plays I've written ... except I wasn't in a condition to refine them, to help in the rehearsal, or do anything. I was hardly conscious of what was going on except during the hours of the day when I was actually writing ... and that was with the aid of speed."
"I'm much more conscious of historical events since the '60s. In the '60s, I was insulated by my own addictions, my own lifestyle, from what was going on in the world. After I recovered I was amazed at certain people who had died. I hadn't noticed that they had gone. Not friends ... I'm talking about public figures who had passed away."
"There is no pleasure in the world like writing well and going fast. It's like nothing else. It's like a love affair, it goes on and on, and doesn't end in marriage. It's all courtship."