A Quote by William Jay Smith

To Tennessee Williams we owe a special debt. In a tragic age, he has transformed loneliness by naming it for us, suffered sordidness with beauty, graced poor hurt lives with love and pity.
Suffering... We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.
Suffering! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.
They tell us that "Pity is akin to Love;" if so, Pity must be a poor relation.
It's just that the characters are speaking their mind. As opposed to it just being an expression, they're actually saying what's on their mind, and that's something that Tennessee Williams is really famous for. Shakespeare does that and Tennessee Williams does that. You crave that, when you're an actor, for sure.
We all owe everyone for everything that happens in our lives. But it's not owing like a debt to one person--it's really that we owe everyone for everything. Our whole lives can change in an instant--so each person that keeps that from happening, no matter how small a role they play, is also responsible for all of it. Just by giving friendship and love, you keep the people around you from giving up--and each expression of friendship or love may be the one that makes all the difference.
I love Tennessee Williams; as a playwright, he's so poetic.
If we keep kicking the can down the road, if we follow the president's lead or if we pass the Senate budget, then we will have a debt crisis. Then everybody gets hurt. You know who gets hurt first and the worst in a debt crisis? The poor, the elderly. That's what we're trying to prevent from happening.
Pity is for this life, pity is the worm inside the meat, pity is the meat, pity is the shaking pencil, pity is the shaking voice-- not enough money, not enough love--pity for all of us--it is our grace, walking down the ramp or on the moving sidewalk, sitting in a chair, reading the paper, pity, turning a leaf to the light, arranging a thorn.
I wanted to avoid all that literary stuff. I didn't want the self pity of 'The Portrait,' all the moaning and the whingeing. I'm not knocking Joyce: we all owe him a debt. He's the one who made so much possible.
I love Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor. I read a lot of American writers.
Beauty plus pity-that is the closest we can get to a definition of art. Where there is beauty there is pity for the simple reason that beauty must die: beauty always dies, the manner dies with the matter, the world dies with the individual.
I'm constantly questioning the effects technology has had on our lives and the effect that monetary debt has had on all of us. We keep this as a dark little secret: 'This is how much interest I owe.'
Too many of us never understand what we owe to our dear ones until there remains no further opportunity of paying love's debt.
To the people that claim to hate Love: Remember that the thing that hurt you was a person, not love. If it had been love, they would not have hurt you. Beware that many things masquerade as love: obsession, jealousy, control, and loneliness are just a few. Love is the greatest thing on Earth, along with her sister, Hope.
What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!' Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.
Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
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