Status Updates From Death of a Salesman: Certai...

and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home. [A sob rises in her throat.] We’re free and clear. [Sobbing more fully, released] We’re free. [BIFF comes slowly toward her.] We’re free . . . We’re free . . .

WILLY: How can they dare refuse? Didn’t I work like a coolie to meet every premium on the nose? And now they don’t pay off ? Impossible!
BEN: It’s called a cowardly thing, William.
WILLY: Why? Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a zero?

LINDA: And Willy, don’t forget to ask for a little advance, because we’ve got the insurance premium. It’s the grace period now.
WILLY: That’s a hundred . . . ?
LINDA: A hundred and eight, sixty-eight. Because we’re a little short again.
WILLY: Why are we short?
LINDA: Well, you had the motor job on the car . . .
WILLY: That goddam Studebaker!
LINDA: And you got one more payment on the refrigerator . . .

. . . all I’d need would be a little lumber and some peace of mind.

BIFF reaches behind the heater and draws out a length of rubber tubing. He is horrified and turns his head toward WILLY’S room, still dimly lit, from which the strains of LINDA’S desperate but monotonous humming rise.]
WILLY [staring through the window into the moonlight]:
Gee, look at the moon moving between the buildings!
[BIFF wraps the tubing around his hand and quickly goes up the stairs.]

CURTAIN

WILLY: Million-dollar . . .
HAPPY: And you wouldn’t get fed up with it,
BIFF: It’d be the family again. There’d be the old honor, and comrade- ship, . . . .
WILLY: Lick the world! You guys together could abso- lutely lick the civilized world.
BIFF: I’ll see Oliver tomorrow. Hap, if we could work that out . . .
LINDA: Maybe things are beginning to—
WILLY [wildly enthused, to linda]: Stop interrupting!