key quotes - asnd

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Blanche DuBois (spoken to the Doctor in Scene 11 as she is led away, revealing her utter vulnerability and detachment from reality).

"We've had this date with each other from the beginning!"

Stanley Kowalski (spoken to Blanche in Scene 10 right before raping her, framing his violence as an inevitable triumph over her).

"There are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark - that sort of make everything else seem - unimportant."

Stella Kowalski (explaining to Blanche in Scene 4 how intense physical passion holds her marriage with Stanley together).

"I don't want realism. I want magic!"

Blanche DuBois (spoken to Mitch in Scene 9, encapsulating her desperate need to hide behind illusions and romance rather than face harsh reality).

"You're not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother."

Harold "Mitch" Mitchell (spoken to Blanche in Scene 9 after learning about her past at the Flamingo Hotel, rejecting her as a marriage partner).

"Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the one unforgivable thing in my opinion, and it is the one thing of which I have never, ever been guilty."

Blanche DuBois (spoken to Stanley in Scene 10, distinguishing her own minor deceits from intentional malice).