Big Daddy from "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams

What do you know about this mendacity thing? Hell! I could write a book on it! Don't you know that? I could write a book on it and still not cover the subject? Well, I could, I could write a goddam book on it and still not cover the subject anywhere near enough!!--Think of all the lies I got to put up with!--Pretenses! Ain't that mendacity? Having to pretend stuff you don't think or feel or have any idea of? Having for instance to act like I care for Big Mama!--I haven't been able to stand the sight, sound, or smell of that woman for forty years now!--even when I laid her!--regular as a piston. . . .
Pretend to love that son of a bitch of a Gooper and his wife Mae and those five same screechers out there like parrots in a jungle? Jesus! Can't stand to look at 'em!
Church!--it bores the Bejesus out of me but I go!--I go an' sit there and listen to the fool preacher!
Clubs!--Elks! Masons! Rotary!--crap!
(A spasm of pain makes him clutch his belly. He sinks into a chair and his voice is softer and hoarser.)
You I do like for some reason, did always have some kind of real feeling for--affection--respect--yes, always. . . .
You and being a success as a planter is all I ever had any devotion to in my life!--and that's the truth. . . .
I don't know why, but it is!
I've lived with mendacity!--Why can't you live with it? Hell, you got to live with it, there's nothing else to live with except mendacity, is there?

Margaret "Maggie the Cat" Pollitt from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams

(Movie)

Oh, Brick. I get so lonely. Living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone when the one you love doesn't love you. You can't even stand drinking out of the same glass, can you? . . . No! No, I wouldn't. Why can't you lose your good looks, Brick? Most drinking men lose theirs. Why can't you. I think you've even gotten better looking since you weren't on the bottle. You were such a wonderful love . . . You were so exciting to be in love with. Mostly I guess because you were . . .If I thought you'd never never made love to me again, why I'd find me the longest, sharpest knife I could and I'd stick it straight into my heart. I'd do that. Oh, Brick, how long does this have to go on, this punishment? Haven't I served my term? Can't I apply for a pardon? . . . Is it any wonder. You know what I feel like? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof.