Quotes from A Streetcar Named Desire

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Don't you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour - but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands - and who knows what to do with it?”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I don't want realism. I want magic!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Physical beauty is passing - a transitory possession - but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart - I have all these things - aren't taken away but grow! Increase with the years!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Oh, you can't describe someone you're in love with!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Show me a person who hasn´t known any sorrow and I´ll show you a superficial.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery - love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Well, honey, a shot never does a coke any harm!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at - Elysian Fields!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“We've had this date with each other from the beginning.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Never inside, I didn't lie in my heart...”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I don't believe in "original sin." I don't believe in "guilt." I don't believe in villains or heroes - only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents.
This is so simple I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm sure it's true. In fact, I would bet my life on it! And that's why I don't understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth.
- Blanche Scene II”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Stanley:
Delicate piece she is.
Stella:
She is. She was. You didn't know Blanche as a girl. Nobody, nobody, was tender and trusting as she was. But people like you abused her, and forced her to change.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Stella:
And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby..
[she smiles to herself]
Blanche:
I guess that is what is meant by being in love..”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“When I was sixteen, I made the discovery -- love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“-You're simple, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side, I should think. To interest you a woman would have to...
-To lay her cards out on the table.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“Blanche:
No, I have the misfortune of being an English instructor. I attempt to instill a bunch of bobby-soxers and drugstore Romeos with a reverence for Hawthorne and Whitman and Poe!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's even something -sub-human -something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something - ape-like about him, like one of those pictures I've seen in - anthropological studies! Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is - Stanley Kowalski - survivor of the Stone Age! Bearing the raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here - waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet! Night falls and the other apes gather! There in the front of the cave, all grunting like him, and swilling and gnawing and hulking! His poker night! - you call it - this party of apes! Somebody growls - some creature snatches at something - the fight is on! God! Maybe we are a long way from beng made in God's image, but Stella - my sister - there has been some progress since then! Such things as art - as poetry and music - such kinds of new light have come into the world since then! In some kinds of people some tendered feelings have had some little beginning! That we have got to make grow! And cling to, and hold as our flag! In this dark march towards what-ever it is we're approaching . . . Don't - don't hang back with the brutes!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“[Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.]”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“I'll tell you what I want. Magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misinterpret things to them. I don't tell the truth. I tell what ought to be truth. And if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it! - Don't turn the light on!”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

“...most writers, and most other artists, too, are primarily motivated in their desperate vocation by a desire to find and to separate truth from the complex of lies and evasions they live in, and I think that this impulse is what makes their work not so much a profession as a vocation, a true calling.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire

About the author

Popular quotes

“What’s that?” he asked.

“A picture of my mom,” I said, opening his ice-cold hand and putting the frame in it gently.

“But Apron,” Chad said. “I can’t see.”

“I know. But it’s not for now. It’s for when you get there, so you can find her.”

Chad tapped his finger on my mom’s cheek. “Does she look like you?”

I thought about it hard enough for Chad to take in another long breath. “A little bit,” I said.

“Not quite as pretty?”

“Well,” I said. “You’ll have to see for yourself.”

Chad raised his eyebrows. “I’ll find her, Apron. I promise. If you promise me something, too.”

I nodded, but then remembered he couldn’t see me. “What?”

“Don’t stay sad. Remember our poem. What it means. Promise?”
― Jennifer Gooch Hummer, quote from Girl Unmoored

“After some hours, the dogs, exhausted by running round, almost dead, their tongues hanging out, set upon one another and, not knowing what they are doing, tear one another into thousands of pieces with incredible rapidity. Yet they do not do this out of cruelty.

One day, a glazed look in her eyes, my mother said to me: ‘When you are in bed and you hear the barking of the dogs in the countryside, hide beneath your blanket, but do not deride what they do: they have an insatiable thirst for the infinite, as you, and I, and all other pale, long-faced human beings do.’

Since that time, I have respected the dead woman’s wish. Like those dogs I feel the need for the infinite. I cannot, cannot satisfy this need. I am the son of a man and a woman, from what I have been told.

This astonishes me…I believed I was something more.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, quote from Maldoror = Les Chants de Maldoror, together with a translation of Lautréamont's Poésies

“He Himself makes the mortals anxious, and He Himself takes the anxiety away.”
― Guru Nanak, quote from Sri Guru Granth Sahib

“I shall never eat duck again. I cannot believe I used to like duck. The duck betrayed me.”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale

“In the harsh veracity of the real world, he was rich, successful, and one of the most desired bachelors in New York—and I was, well, me. A world I hoped wouldn’t tear us apart by pointing out just how different our lives were.
“You’re probably eager to get home,” Jett whispered in my ear so the flight attendant serving coffee wouldn’t hear us, “but will you stay with me one more night? I’m not quite ready to let this go.”
― J.C. Reed, quote from Surrender Your Love

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.