William Inge > Quotes

“Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true.”
― William Inge

“People distrust you if you don’t play the same games they do, Sonny. It’s the same after you grow up.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“I been talkin' with my buddy, and he thinks I'm virgin enough fer the two of us.”
― William Inge, Bus Stop

“Oh, believe me. The greatest egos are those which are too egotistical to show just how egotistical they are.”
― William Inge, Bus Stop

“I’ll be darned if I’d let any man tell me whether I could bob my hair or not. Why, I wouldn’t go back to long hair now for anything. Morris says maybe I should take up smoking cigarettes now. Would you believe it, Cora? Women all over Oklahoma City are smoking cigarettes now. Isn’t that disgraceful? What in God’s name are we all coming to?”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“Anonymous. He doesn’t care if I tell you that ’cause he’s proud of it. He hasn’t touched a drop in almost a year. All that time we’ve had a quart of whiskey in the pantry for company and he hasn’t even gone near it. Doesn’t even want to. You know, alcoholics can’t drink like ordinary people; they’re allergic to it. It affects them different. They get started drinking and can’t stop. Liquor transforms them. Sometimes they get mean and violent and wanta fight, but if they let liquor alone, they’re perfectly all right, just like you and me.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“Success, it seems to me, would be somewhat meaningless if the play were not a personal contribution. The author who creates only for audience consumption is only engaged in a financial enterprise.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“In an article I once wrote on Picnic, I compared a play to a journey, in which every moment should be as interesting as the destination.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“It's like the daylight didn't want to end, isn't it? . . . Like the daytime was gonna put up a big scrap and maybe sit the world on fire . . . to keep night-time from creepin' on.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“DOC    (Goes into living room) ’Bout time for Fibber McGee and Molly.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art.”
― William Inge

“Scenes An old house in a run-down neighborhood of a Midwestern city.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“What good is it to be pretty?"

"Well. . . pretty things are rare in this life."

"But what good are they?"

"Well . . . pretty things . . . like flowers and sunsets
and rubies and pretty girls, too . . . they're like billboards telling us that life is good.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“MARIE    (Not sounding exactly cheerful) Mrs. Delaney, I’m expecting a telegram this morning. Would you leave it on my dresser for me when it comes? LOLA Sure, honey. No bad news, I hope. MARIE Oh, no! It’s from Bruce. LOLA    (MARIE’S boy friends are one of her liveliest interests) Oh, your boy friend in Cincinnati. Is he coming to see you?”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“People we love are always pretty, but people who're
pretty to begin with, everybody loves them.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“Oh, Mom, what can you do with the love you feel? Where is there you can take it?”
― William Inge, Picnic

“LOLA    You try to make out like every young girl is Jennifer Jones in the Song of Bernadette.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“MARIE He’s gotta take off his clothes. LOLA Huh? (Closes door) MARIE These drawings are for my life class. LOLA (Consoled but still mystified) Oh. MARIE    (Sits on couch) Turk’s the best male model we’ve had all year. Lotsa athletes pose for us ’cause they’ve all got muscles. They’re easier to draw. LOLA You mean … he’s gonna pose naked? MARIE    (Laughs) No. The women do, but the men are always more proper. Turk’s going to pose in his track suit. LOLA    Oh. (Almost to herself) The women pose naked but the men don’t. (This strikes her as a startling inconsistency) If it’s all right for a woman, it oughta be for a man.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“DOC    No … no, Baby. We should never feel bad about what’s past. What’s in the past can’t be helped. You … you’ve got to forget it and live for the present. If you can’t forget the past, you stay in it and never get out.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“I'm only eighteen."

"And next summer you'll be nineteen, and then twenty, and then twenty-one, and then forty.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“I always envied you, having a husband you could boss.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA was first presented by The Theatre Guild at the Booth Theatre, New York City, on February 15, 1950, with the following cast: (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) DOC Sidney Blackmer MARIE Joan Lorring LOLA Shirley Booth TURK Lonny Chapman POSTMAN Daniel Reed MRS. COFFMAN Olga Fabian MILKMAN ]ohn Randolph MESSENGER Arnold Schulman BRUCE Robert Cunningham ED ANDERSON Wilson Brooks ELMO HUSTON Paul Krauss DIRECTED BY Daniel Mann”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“Then for the first time you grabbed me and kissed me. Tears came to your eyes, Doc, and you said you’d love me forever and ever. Remember? You said … if I didn’t marry you, you wanted to die … I remember ’cause it scared me for anyone to say a thing like that. DOC (In a repressed tone) Yes, Baby. LOLA    And when the evening came on, we stretched out on the cool grass and you kissed me all night long. DOC    (Opens doors) Baby, you’ve got to forget those things. That was twenty years ago. LOLA    I’ll soon be forty. Those years have just vanished—vanished into thin air.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“You gotta remember, men have feelings, too—same as
women.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“Some day I'm going to get on that train and I'm going to go to New York."

"That train only goes as far as Tulsa.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“It just seems that when I'm looking in the mirror that's
the only way I can prove to myself I'm alive. . . Lots of the time I wonder if I really exist.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“I don't care if you're real or not. You're the most beautiful thing I ever saw.”
― William Inge, Picnic

“In the kitchen there is a table, center. On it are piled dirty dishes from supper the night before. Woodwork in the kitchen is dark and grimy. No industry whatsoever has been spent in making it one of those white, cheerful rooms that we commonly think kitchens should be.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“I did some Twelfth Step work down there once before. They put alcoholics right in with the crazy people. It’s horrible—these men all twisted and shaking—eyes all foggy and full of pain. Some guy there with his fists clamped together, so he couldn’t kill anyone. There was a young man, just a young man, had scratched his eyes out.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“Oh, yes. I'm terribly smart. Wouldn't it have been nice... to be intelligent?”
― William Inge