25 The Glass Menagerie Quotes From the Famous Tennessee Williams Play

Check out these The Glass Menagerie quotes to learn more about the famous play.

The Glass Menagerie is a “memory play” where the action is drawn from the narrator as he or she recounts their memories.

The play was written by Tennessee Williams and premiered in 1944 in Chicago, Illinois.

The play’s plot takes place in St. Louis in the 1930s and centers around the Wingfield family.

Mr. Wingfield abandoned his family, leaving his wife Amanda, his daughter Laura, and his son Tom, who narrates the play, alone.

Tom is forced to take a job he hates to provide for his shy sister and mother.

Tom constantly wrestles with wanting to go out on an adventure and leave his mother and sister and begins to plan to leave in secret.

But he agrees to help Laura find a husband first.

We have all had responsibilities that we may not like, but how we handle them shows our character.

Take a look at these The Glass Menagerie quotes to see what happens to the Wingfields.

Popular The Glass Menagerie Quotes

Here are some of the memorable lines from The Glass Menagerie.

1. “I am disappointed, but I am not discouraged.” — Tennessee Williams

2. “I’m tired of movies, and I am about to move.” — Tennessee Williams

3. “Possess your soul in patience—you will see.” — Tennessee Williams

4. “Time is the longest distance between two places.” — Tennessee Williams

5. “People are not so dreadful when you know them.” — Tennessee Williams

6. “In memory, everything seems to happen to music.” — Tennessee Williams

7. “Glass breaks so easily. No matter how careful you are.” — Tennessee Williams

8. “I give you the truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.” — Tennessee Williams

9. “How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.” — Tennessee Williams

10. “I have tricks in my pocket. I have things up my sleeve.” — Tennessee Williams

The Glass Menagerie Quotes and Lines

Fans of Tennessee Williams will enjoy these quotes from his work.

11. “I know all about the tyranny of women.” — Tennessee Williams

12. “For nowadays the world is lit by lightning.” — Tennessee Williams

13. “I’ll be all right in a minute, I’m just bewildered—by life…” — Tennessee Williams

14. “All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.” — Tennessee Williams

15. “She lives in a world of her own—a world of—little glass ornaments…” — Tennessee Williams

16. “Adventure is something I don’t have much of at work, so I go to the movies.” — Tennessee Williams

17. “I followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.” — Tennessee Williams

18. “Some people say that science clears up all the mysteries for us. In my opinion, it only creates more.” — Tennessee Williams

19. “The different people are not like other people, but being different is nothing to be ashamed of.” — Tennessee Williams

Additional Quotes from The Glass Menagerie

Enjoy these final The Glass Menagerie quotes shared below.

20. “Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse.” — Tennessee Williams

21. “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.” — Tennessee Williams

22. “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 having them.” — Tennessee Williams

23. “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.” — Tennessee Williams

24. “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.” — Tennessee Williams

25. “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.” — Tennessee Williams

What Happens to the Wingfields?

Tom brings home a co-worker named Jim, who Laura has a crush on.

After Laura and Jim begin to get close, he accidentally breaks her glass figurine and suddenly exclaims that he must go as he has a fiancee.

Tom is disappointed for his sister, but he decides that his adventures won’t wait, and he leaves his mom and sister.

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