Arthur Miller > Quotes

“Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.”
― Arthur Miller

“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
― Arthur Miller

“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, The Crucible

“Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.”
― Arthur Miller

“If I have to be alone I want to be by myself.”
― Arthur Miller

“The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy.”
― Arthur Miller, Death Of A Salesman

“The two most common elements in the world are hydrogen and stupidity.
”
― Arthur Miller

“Everything we are is at every moment alive in us.”
― Arthur Miller

“If a person measures his spiritual fulfillment in terms of cosmic visions, surpassing peace of mind, or ecstasy, then he is not likely to know much spiritual fulfillment. If, however, he measures it in terms of enjoying a sunrise, being warmed by a child's smile, or being able to help someone have a better day, then he is likely to know much spiritual fulfillment. ”
― Arthur Miller

“A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Revised Edition

“After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“The very impulse to write springs from an inner chaos crying for order - for meaning.”
― Arthur Miller

“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
― Arthur Miller

“You can quicker get back a million dollars that was stolen than a word that you gave away.”
― Arthur Miller, A View from the Bridge

“He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid.”
― Arthur Miller

“I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.”
― Arthur Miller

“I believe in work. If somebody doesn't create something, however small it may be, he gets sick. An awful lot of people feel that they're treading water -- that if they vanished in smoke, it wouldn't mean anything at all in this world. And that's a despairing and destructive feeling. It'll kill you.”
― Arthur Miller

“Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“You are pulling down heaven and raising up a whore”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Revised Edition

“If you believe that life is worth living then your belief will create the fact.”
― Arthur Miller

“Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in the middle of July.”
― Arthur Miller

“Pop, I'm nothing! I'm nothing, Pop. Can't you understand that? There's no spite in it any more. I'm just what I am, that's all.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“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!
- Abigail”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“They tried to escape technology, to stay away from that and still have relationships with their fellow humans. Very difficult.”
― Arthur Miller, The Misfits

“Sex, sin, and the Devil were early linked.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“More Weight
-Giles Corey-”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“There might be a dragon with five legs in my house, but no one has ever seen it.”
― Arthur Miller

“I don't say he's a great man. Willie Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“The wedding of Christianity or Judaism with nationalism is lethal.”
― Arthur Miller

“The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone...”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“HALE, with a tasty love of intellectual pursuit”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw — the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? 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! Why can't I say that, Willy?”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“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!”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“PROCTOR, his mind wild, breathless: I say--I say--God is dead!”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“The best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.”
― Arthur Miller

“Charley: He won't starve. None a them starve. Forget about him.
Willy: Then what have I got to remember?”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Chris: I don't know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer.”
― Arthur Miller, All My Sons

“Sometimes...it's better for a man just to walk away.
But if you can't walk away?
I guess that's when it's tough.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“Willy: I am building something with this firm, Ben, and if a man is building something he must be on the right track, mustn't he?
Ben: What are you building? Lay your hand on it. where is it?
Willy [hesitantly]: That's true, Linda, there's nothing.”
― Arthur Miller

“Self-realization and self-fulfilment are the sine qua non for human existence.”
― Arthur Miller

“The world is an oyster but you don't crack it open on a mattress”
― Arthur Miller

“PROCTOR--he knows it is insane: No, it is not the same! What others say and what i sign to is not the same!”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible