“Laws of silence don't work....When something is festering in your memory or your imagination, laws of silence don't work, it's just like shutting a door and locking it on a house on fire in hope of forgetting that the house is burning. But not facing a fire doesn't put it out. Silence about a thing just magnifies it. It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant....”

American playwright and screenwriter, 20th century

Tennessee Williams was an American playwright and screenwriter of the 20th century. Thomas Lanier Williams III, he is widely regarded alongside Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller as one of the three leading figures in American drama. He wrote for both the stage and the screen, and his name is most closely tied to modern American theater. His reputation rests on the enduring place his plays hold in the canon of 20th-century drama.