A Streetcar Named Desire Quotes

Quote 1: "Stella, oh, Stella, Stella! Stella for Star!" Scene 1, pg. 152

Quote 2: "You haven't given me a chance to, honey!" Scene 1, pg. 153

Quote 3: "I'm afraid you won't think they are lovely....They're a mixed lot...." Scene 1, pg. 155

Quote 4: "I want to be near you, got to be with somebody, I can't be alone!" Scene 1, pg. 156

Quote 5: "But you are the one that abandoned Belle Reve, not I! I stayed and fought for it, bled for it, almost died for it!" Scene 1, pg. 157

Quote 6: "In the state of Louisiana we have the Napoleonic code according to which what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband and vice versa." Scene 2, pg. 163

Quote 7: "I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is fifty per cent illusion, but when a thing is important I tell the truth, and this is the truth: I haven't cheated my sister or you or anyone else as long as I have lived." Scene 2, pg. 167

Quote 8: "These are love-letters, yellowing with antiquity, all from one boy.....Poems a dead boy wrote. I hurt him the way that you would like to hurt me, but you can't! I'm not young and vulnerable any more. But my young husband was...." Scene 2, pg. 168

Quote 9: "No. Stanley's the only one of his crowd that's likely to get anywhere." Scene 3, pg. 174

Quote 10: "And if God choose, / I shall but love thee better - after - death!" Scene 3, pg. 176

Quote 11: "It's a French name. It means woods and Blanche means white, so the two together mean white woods. Like an orchard in spring!" Scene 3, pg. 176-77

Quote 12: "Poker shouldn't be played in a house with women." Scene 3, pg. 178

Quote 13: "Stella! My baby doll's left me!...I want my baby!...Stella!...Stella!" Scene 3, pg. 179

Quote 14: "Thank you for being so kind! I need kindness now." Scene 3, pg. 181

Quote 15: "He didn't know what he was doing....He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he's really very, very ashamed of himself." Scene 4, pg. 183

Quote 16: "You take it for granted that I am in something that I want to get out of." Scene 4, pg. 187

Quote 17: "He acts like an animal, has an animal's habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one! There's something even sub-human-something not quite to the stage of humanity yet! Yes, something - ape-like about him.....Thousands and thousands of years have passed him right by, and there he is - Stanley Kowalksi - survivor of the stone age!...And you - you here - waiting for him! Maybe he'll strike you or maybe grunt and kiss you! That is, if kisses have been discovered yet!" Scene 4, pg. 188

Quote 18: "What I mean is - he thinks I'm sort of - prim and proper, you know! I want to deceive him enough to make him - want me..." Scene 5, pg. 194

Quote 19: "Now run along, now, quickly! It would be nice to keep you, but I've got to be good - and keep my hands off children." Scene 5, pg. 196

Quote 20: "You know as well as I do that a single girl, a girl alone in the world, has got to keep a firm hold on her emotions or she'll be lost!" Scene 6, pg. 198

Quote 21: "You're a natural gentleman, one of the very few that are left in the world. I don't want you to think that I am severe and old maid schoolteacherish or anything like that....I guess it's just that I have - old-fashioned ideals!" Scene 6, pg. 201

Quote 22: "You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be - you and me, Blanche?" Scene 6, pg. 204

Quote 23: "The trouble with Dame Blanche was that she couldn't put on her act any more in Laurel! They got wised up after two or three dates with her and then they quit, and she goes on to another, the same old line, same old act, same old hooey! But the town was too small for this to go on forever! And as time went by she became a town character. Regarded as not just different but downright loco-nuts." Scene 7, pg. 207

Quote 24: "Her future is mapped out for her." Scene 7, pg. 210

Quote 25: "That's how I'll clear the table!" Scene 8, pg. 212

Quote 26: "When we first met, me and you, you thought I was common. How right you was, baby. I was common as dirt. You showed me the snapshot of the place with the columns. I pulled you down off them columns and how you loved it, having them colored lights going! And wasn't we happy together, wasn't it all okay till she showed here?" Scene 8, pg. 215

Quote 27: "It's dark in here....I don't think I ever seen you in the light....What it means is I've never had a real good look at you...." Scene 9, pg. 218

Quote 28: "Yes, I had many intimacies with strangers....So I came here. There was nowhere else I could go. I was played out....and I met you. You said you needed somebody. Well, I needed somebody, too. I thanked God for you, because you seemed to be gentle - a cleft in the rock of the world that I could hide in!" Scene 9, pg. 219-220

Quote 29: "I don't think I want to marry you any more....You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother." Scene 9, pg. 221

Quote 30: "I've been on to you from the start! Not once did you pull any wool over this boy's eyes! You come in here and sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the light bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! Sitting on your throne and swilling down my liquor!" Scene 10, pg. 225-26

Quote 31: "Whoever you are - I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." Scene 11, pg. 235