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Arthur Miller
108 quotes
“Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sit down, Willy.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell. And the funny thing is that you're a salesman, and you don't know that.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work a lifetime to pay off a house — You finally own it and there's nobody to live in it.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ben, that funeral will be massive! They'll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the old-timers with the strange license plates — that boy will be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized — I am known! Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey — I am known, Ben, and he'll see it with his eyes once and for all.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Spite, spite, is the word of your undoing!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You cut your life down for spite!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Isn't that — isn't that remarkable? Biff — he likes me!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody dast blame this man. Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. 'Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people?”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wonderful coffee. Meal in itself”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing's Planted, I don't have a thing in the ground.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We're free and clear, Willy. We're free, we're free, we're free...”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this age few tragedies are written. It has often been held that the lack is due to a paucity of heroes among us, or else that modern man has had the blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the skepticism of science, and the heroic attack on life cannot feed on an attitude of reserve and circumspection. For one reason or another, we are often held to be below tragedy — or tragedy above us.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The tragic right is a condition of life, a condition in which the human personality is able to flower and realize itself. The wrong is the condition which suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct. Tragedy enlightens — and it must, in that it points the heroic finger at the enemy of man's freedom. The thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts. The revolutionary questioning of the stable environment is what terrifies.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Above all else, tragedy requires the finest appreciation by the writer of cause and effect. No tragedy can therefore come about when its author fears to question absolutely everything, when he regards any institution, habit or custom as being either everlasting, immutable or inevitable. In the tragic view the need of man to wholly realize himself is the only fixed star, and whatever it is that hedges his nature and lowers it is ripe for attack and examination.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I'll cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A child's spirit is like a child, you cannot catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart, Mr. Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hale: Here is all the invisible world, caught, defined, and calculated. In these books the Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises. Here are all your familiar spirits — your incubi and succubi; your witches that go by land, by air, and by sea; your wizards of the night and of the day. Have no fear now — we shall find him out if he has come among us, and I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face! Rebecca: Will it hurt the child, sir? Hale: I cannot tell. If she is truly in the Devil's grip we may have to rip and tear to get her free.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'll plead no more! I see now your spirit twists around the single error of my life, and I will never tear it free!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon my baby. I see no light of God in that man. I'll not conceal it.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though our own hearts break, we cannot flinch; these are new times, sir. There is a misty plot afoot so subtle we should be criminal to cling to old respect and ancient friendships. I have seen too many frightful proofs in court — the Devil is alive in Salem, and we dare not quail to follow wherever the accusing finger points!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God's fingers? I'll tell you what's walking Salem — vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant's vengeance! I'll not give my wife to vengeance!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now hell and heaven grapple on our backs and all our old pretense is ripped away. Aye, and God's icy wind will blow.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time — we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hale: There is a prodigious fear of this court in the country — Danforth: Then there is a prodigious guilt in the country. Are you afraid to be questioned here? Hale: I may only fear the Lord, sir, but there is fear in the country nevertheless. Danforth: Reproach me not with the fear in the country; there is fear in the country because there is a moving plot to topple Christ in the country! Hale: But it does not follow that everyone accused is part of it. Danforth: No uncorrupted man may fear this court, Mr. Hale!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud — God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You're pulling heaven down, and raising up a whore!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it. I beg you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his lie. Quail not before God's judgment in this, for it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“John, I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me! Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how I should say my love. It were a cold house I kept!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Danforth: Do you mean to deny this confession when you are free? Proctor: I mean to deny nothing! Danforth: Then explain to me, Mr. Proctor, why you will not let — Proctor: [With the cry of his whole soul] Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who weeps for these, weeps for corruption!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He have his goodness now, God forbid I take it from him!”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action?”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am bewildered by the death of love. And my responsibility for it.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quentin in After the Fall (1964) Act II
“I saw clearly only when I saw with love. Or can one ever remember love? It's like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume. And that's the truth of roses, isn't it? — The perfume?”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quentin in After the Fall (1964) Act II
“I love her too, but our neuroses just don't match.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look, we're all the same; a man is a fourteen-room house — in the bedroom he's asleep with his intelligent wife, in the living-room he's rolling around with some bareass girl, in the library he's paying his taxes, in the yard he's raising tomatoes, and in the cellar he's making a bomb to blow it all up.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I cannot write anything that I understand too well. If I know what something means to me, if I have already come to the end of it as an experience, I can't write it because it seems a twice-told tale. I have to astonish myself, and that of course is a very costly way of going about things, because you can go up a dead end and discover that it's beyond your capacity to discover some organism underneath your feeling, and you're left simply with a formless feeling which is not itself art. It's inexpressible and one must leave it until it is hardened and becomes something that has form and has some possibility of being communicated. It might take a year or two or three or four to emerge.”
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) first seen 1960 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The State of the Theatre" an interview by Henry Brandon in Harpers 221 (November 1960)