Glass Menagerie Quotes

Time is the longest distance between two places.

How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.

In memory, everything seems to happen to music.

Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.

Every time you come in yelling that God damn "Rise and Shine!" "Rise and Shine!" I say to myself, "How lucky dead people are!

I didn't go to the moon, I went much further—for time is the longest distance between two places

The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.

You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it.

All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.

Being disappointed is one thing and being discouraged is something else. I am disappointed but I am not discouraged.

People go to the movies instead of moving.

Go, then! Go to the moon-you selfish dreamer!

For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura -- and so goodbye. . . .

She lives in a world of her own – a world of – little glass ornaments…

People are not so dreadful when you know them. That's what you have to remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are.

attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.

I'll be all right in a minute, I'm just bewildered - by life...

But here there was only hot swing music and liquor, dance halls, ban, and movies, and sex that hung in the gloom like a chandelier and flooded the world with brief, deceptive rainbows.

The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass.

Being disappointed is one thing and being discouraged is something else.

When you look at a piece of delicately spun glass you think of two things: how beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.

Possess your soul in patience - you will see!

Memory takes a lot of poetic licence. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. The interior is therefore rather dim and poetic.

The future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into ever lasting regret if you don't plan for it!

The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because other people are not such wonderful people. They're one hundred times one thousand. You're one times one! They walk all over the earth. You just stay here.

I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.

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!

I know all about the tyranny of women.

Jim lights a cigarette and leans indolently back on his elbow smiling at Laura with a warmth and charm which lights her inwardly with altar candles.

Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter.

Yes, movies! Look at them — All of those glamorous people — having adventures — hogging it all, gobbling the whole thing up! You know what happens? People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses! Everyone's dish, not only Gable's! Then the people in the dark room come out of the dark room to have some adventures themselves — Goody, goody! — It's our turn now, to go to the south Sea Island — to make a safari — to be exotic, far-off! — But I'm not patient. I don't want to wait till then. I'm tired of the movies and I am about to move!

It's no tragedy, Freckles. Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are.

I followed, from then on, in my father's footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.

I go to the movies because – I like adventure. Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work, so I go to the movies.

A fragile, unearthly prettiness has come out in Laura: she is like a piece of translucent glass touched by light, given a momentary radiance, not actual, not lasting.

He was a telephone man who fell in love with long distance.

When I had that attack of pleurosis - he asked me what was the matter when I came back. I said pleurosis - he thought that I said Blue Roses! So that's what he always called me after that. Whenever he saw me, he'd holler, "Hello, Blue Roses!

To begin with, I turn back time. I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind. Their eyes had failed them, or they had failed their eyes, and so they were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.

He was always running or bounding, never just walking. He seemed always at the point of defeating the law of gravity.

You know it don't take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?

Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are.

I'm starting to boil inside. I know I seem dreamy, but inside-well, I'm boiling! Whenever I pick up a shoe, I shudder a little thinking how short life is and what I am doing!

Some people say that science clears up all the mysteries for us. In my opinion it only creates more!

I have a poet's weakness for symbols.

The apartment faces an alley and is entered by a fire-escape, a structure whose name is a touch of accidental poetic truth, for all of these huge buildings are always burning with the slow and implacable fires of human desperation.

You don't know things anywhere! You live in a dream, you manufacture illusions!

Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect — hardly noticeable, even! When people have some slight disadvantage like that, they cultivate other things to make up for it — develop charm — and vivacity — and — charm!

You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!

I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further — for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. I left Saint Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger — anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura — and so goodbye. . .

Porque el tiempo es la distancia más larga entre dos lugares...

Laura: I've never danced in my life! Jim: Come on, try! Laura: Oh, but I'd step on you! Jim: I'm not made out of glass.

Time is the longest distance between two places. —TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, The Glass Menagerie

Time is the longest distance between two places.—TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, THE GLASS MENAGERIE (1944)

So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling?

So what are we going to do the rest of our lives? Stay home and watch the parades go by? Amuse ourselves with the glass menagerie, darling?

The Glass Menagerie is the play of Tenn’s that was most often abused, badly directed, misunderstood. This baffled him, because his stage directions are lengthy and precise—and frequently ignored.

I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains - than go back mornings! I go! Every time you come in yelling that Goddamn "Rise and Shine!" "Rise and Shine!" I say to myself, "How lucky dead people are!

You know what happens? People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them !

Whenever elephants met men, elephants fared badly. Syria's final elephants were exterminated by twenty-five hundred years ago. Elephants were gone from much of China literally before the year 1 and much of Africa by the year 1000. Meanwhile, in India and southern Asia, elephants became the mounts of kings; tanks against forts, prisoners' executioners, and pincushions of arrows, driven mad in battle; elephants became logging trucks and bulldozers, and, as with other slaves, their forced labor requires beatings and abuse. Since Roman times, humans have reduced Africa's elephant population by perhaps 99 percent. African elephants are gone from 90 percent of the lands they roamed as recently as 1800, when, despite earlier losses, an estimated twenty-six million elephants still trod the continent. Now they number perhaps four hundred thousand. (The diminishment of Asian elephants over historic times is far worse.) The planet's menagerie has become like shards of broken glass; we're grinding the shards smaller and smaller.

Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes …Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger – anything that can blow your candles out! [LAURA bends over the candles.] – for nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura – and so good-bye.

Así es. Todas las muchachas lindas son una trampa y los hombres esperan que lo sean.

Esto no es una tragedia. El cristal se rompe tan fácilmente... Por cuidadoso que uno sea. El tránsito hace trepitar los estantes y las cosas se caen

¡Oh, estar enamorado ha hecho de mí un hombre nuevo! ¡La fuerza del amor es algo tremendo! El amor es algo que... transforma el mundo entero

We have to do all that we can to build ourselves up. In these trying times we live in, all that we have to cling to is - each other

He is gallantly smiling, ineluctably smiling, as if to say 'I will be smiling forever.

turned

I'll rise - but I won't shine.

You don't have the proper amount of faith in yourself.

He is gallantly smiling, ineluctably smiling, as if to say "I will be smiling forever.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

That time is short and it doesn't return again.

همیشه چیزهایی در انتظار ماست که به خاطر آنها زندگی میکنیم

You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it!

Eres el único joven de los que conozco que ignora que el futuro se convierte en el presente, el presente en el pasado y el pasado es un remordimiento eterno si uno no hace planes con antelación

I wish that you were my sister. I'd teach you to have some confidence in yourself. The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of. Because other people are not such wonderful people. They're one hundred times one thousand. You're one times one! They walk all over the earth. You just stay here. They're common as - weeds, - but - you,- well - you're - Blue Roses!

They're going to blow us all sky-high some night! I'll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You'll go up, up on a broomstick, over Blue Mountain with seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly-babbling old-witch...

Everyone should know nowadays the unimportance of the photographic art: that truth, life, or reality is an organic thing which the poetic imagination can represent or suggest, in essence, only through transformation, through changing into other forms than those which were merely present in appearance.

I’m surprised you even remember that day. You were so into Kavinsky, I don’t think you even noticed who else was there.” I push him in the shoulder. “I was not ‘so into Kavinsky’!” “Yes you were. You kept your eyes on that bottle the whole game, like this.” John picks up the bottle and lasers his eyes at it. “Waiting for your moment.” I’m bright red, I know I am. “Oh, be quiet.” Laughing, he says, “Like a hawk on its prey.” “Shut up!” Now I’m laughing too. “How do you even remember that?” “Because I was doing the same thing,” he says. “You were staring at Peter too?” I say it like a joke, to tease, because this is fun. For the first time in days I’m having fun. He looks right at me, navy-blue eyes sure and steady, and my breath catches in my chest. “No. I was looking at you.” There’s a humming in my ears, and it’s the sound of my heart beating in triple measure. In memory, everything seems to happen to music. One of my favorite lines from The Glass Menagerie. If I close my eyes I can almost hear it, that day in John Ambrose McClaren’s basement. Years from now, when I look back on this moment, what music will I hear then? His eyes hold mine, and I feel a flutter that starts in my throat and moves across my collarbone and chest. “I like you, Lara Jean. I liked you then and I like you even more now. I know you and Kavinsky just broke up, and you’re still sad, but I just want to make it unequivocally clear.” “Um…okay,” I whisper. His words--they come clearly; they don’t miss in either direction. Not even a trace of a stutter. Just--unequivocally clear.

TOM: Slušaj! Misliš da ludujem za skladištem? Misliš da sam zaljubljen u tvornicu cipela Kontinental? Misliš da želim provesti pedeset i pet godina u onoj prostoriji od celoteksa s' fluorescentnim cijevima? Više bih volio da mi netko maljem razbije glavu i prospe mozak nego da se onamo vraćam svakoga jutra! A ipak idem! Svaki put kad mi uđeš u sobu i vikneš ono prokleto:"Ustani i blistaj! Ustani i blistaj!" - ja kažem samome sebi: "Blago mrtvima!" A ipak ustajem! I idem! Za šezdeset i pet dolara mjesečno odričem se svega što bih želio raditi i biti! A ti kažeš da sam sebičan... da uvijek mislim samo na sebe. Čuj me, majko, da mislim na sebe, učinio bih ono što je on učinio - OTIŠAO BIH! Što dalje moguće! Ne diraj me, majko! AMANDA: Kamo ćeš? TOM: Idem u kino! AMANDA: Ne vjerujem u tu laž! TOM: Idem u jazbine gdje se puši opijum! Da, majko, u jazbine, u jazbine poroka gdje se sastaju kriminalci. Pridružio sam se Hoganovoj bandi, ja sam plaćeni ubojica, nosim automat u kutiji za violinu! Upravljam nizom bordela! Zovu me Koljač, Koljač Vingfield, živim dvostrukim životom, majko, danju sam običan pošteni namještenik u skladištu, a noću svemoćni car podzemlja! Zalazim u kockarnice, za ruletnim stolom rasipam silna bogatstva! Preko oka nosim crni ovoj i stavljam lažni brk, katkad stavljam zelenu bradu i brkove. Tada me zovu El Diablo! Mogao bih ti ispričati takve stvari da ne bi mogla oka sklopiti! Moji neprijatelji namjeravaju dići ovu kuću u zrak. Oni će nas jedne noći otpremiti u nebeske visine!

Clavain looked around the room, taking in the gruesome menagerie of wraithlike seniors, wizened elders and obscene glass-bottled end-state Conjoiners. They were all hanging on his answer, even the visible brains seeming to hesitate in their wheezing pulsations.

How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken” is a quote from the stage directions to a play by Tennessee Willliams, a great American drama about the victimization of a fragile girl who is tragically in love with beautiful, breakable things: the famous glass menagerie that gives the play its title, and which of course provides a richly useful symbol for the themes of delicacy and brittleness, of the lovely illusions that can give purpose to our lives and the hard necessities that can shatter them.

Somebody once said that there are only two plots in fiction. The first is, somebody takes a trip (The Iliad, The Odyssey, Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness). The second one is, a stranger comes to town (Absalom Absalom; The Great Gatsby; The Glass Menagerie). If you think about it, this is absolutely true.

A pair of enormous purple toads sat gulping wetly and feasting on dead blowflies. A gigantic tortoise with a jewel-encrusted shell was glittering near the window. Poisonous orange snails were oozing slowly up the side of their glass tank, and a fat white rabbit kept changing into a silk top hat and back again with a loud popping noise. Then there were cats of every color, a noisy cage of ravens, a basket of funny custard-colored furballs that were humming loudly, and on the counter, a vast cage of sleek black rats that were playing some sort of skipping game using their long, bald tails.