Tennessee Williams Quotes

I think without writing I would feel completely useless.

I always write out of a need to read something, rather than a need to write something.

Yes, writing is essential to me. It's my way of living in the world.

For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided.

Never regret what you don't write.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

I can see a version of my life where it all becomes meaningless. On a good day, writing seems noble. Other times, it's narcissistic and pointless.

I love writing. I feel more connected to that than I do a lot of the other things.

Writing does change you, and of course it feels good to do things, so you could say writing is de facto therapeutic. But really, one writes to write.

I can't work out much about myself or what I see in the world around me unless I do it through writing.

When you write, you don't have the social constraints of having people in front of you, so you talk about abstract matters.

It's absolutely essential to my life. I don't know what I would do if I didn't write.

I lived to write, and wrote to live.

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.

Writing is an incredibly creatively empowering experience for me. It is the place where nobody tries to control what I'm doing.

That's what I've figured out over the years - the way I write makes people feel uncomfortable.

I ultimately write for myself and the people I love.

I think of the part of me that writes as the most private self. It's the part that's engaged the least with the rest of the world's needs.

But 'why then publish?' There are no rewards Of fame or profit when the world grows weary. I ask in turn why do you play at cards? Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary. It occupies me to turn back regards On what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery, And what I write I cast upon the stream To swim or sink. I have had at least my dream.

If your life is worth thinking about,it is worth writing about.

I write to make sense of my life." -John Cheever, quoted in _Cheever - A Life_ (2009) by Blake Bailey

Why do I write? I guess that's been asked of every writer. I don't know. It isn't any massive compulsion.

This above all-ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose.

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.