Four Plays Quotes

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“DOC    (Goes into living room) ’Bout time for Fibber McGee and Molly.”
― 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

“LOLA    I wanted children, too. When I lost my baby and found out I couldn’t have any more, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to get a job, but Doc wouldn’t hear of it.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“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

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

“LOLA Oh, no. She’s probably going out with Turk tonight. DOC    She’s too nice a girl to be going out with a guy like Turk. LOLA I don’t know why, Daddy. Turk’s nice.”
― 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

“LOLA    I know what you mean. Whenever I help Marie in some way, it makes me feel good. DOC    Yah. (LOLA takes her cup to DOC and he washes it) Yes, but this is a lot different, Baby. When I go out to help some poor drunk, I have to give him courage—to stay sober like I’ve stayed sober. Most alcoholics are disappointed men.… They need courage … LOLA You weren’t ever disappointed, were you, Daddy? DOC    (After another evasive pause) The important thing is to forget the past and live for the present. And stay sober doing it.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“Over a nightdress she wears a lumpy kimono. Her eyes are dim with a morning expression of disillusionment, as though she had had a beautiful dream during the night and found on waking none of it was true. On her feet are worn dirty comfies)”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“DOC    Yes, you want to study hard, Marie, learn to be a fine artist some day. Paint lots of beautiful pictures. I remember a picture my mother had over the mantelpiece at home, a picture of a cathedral in a sunset, one of those big cathedrals in Europe somewhere. Made you feel religious just to look at it.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“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

“Scenes An old house in a run-down neighborhood of a Midwestern city.”
― 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

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

“In the spring a young man’s fancy turns … pretty fancy.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“I have never heard of a suicide that I expected.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3

“A good author insists on being accepted on his own terms, and audiences must bicker awhile before they’re willing to give in. One learns not to be resentful about this condition but to credit it to human nature.”
― William Inge, Picnic plus 3