Arthur Miller > Quotes

“Forget now. Live.”
― Arthur Miller, All My Sons

“The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“Be liked and you will never want.”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up. Beware, Goody Proctor--cleave to no faith when faith brings blood. 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.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“The Salem tragedy, which is about to begin in these pages, developed from a paradox. It is a paradox in whose grip we still live, and there is no prospect yet that we will discover its resolution. Simply, it was this: for good purposes, even high purposes, the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies. It was forged for a necessary purpose and accomplished that purpose. But all organization is and must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and prohibition, just as two objects cannot occupy the same space. Evidently the time came in New England when the repressions of order were heavier than seemed warranted by the dangers against which the order was organized. The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“Then what is this if it isn’t telling me? Sure, he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were, I guess they were.”
― Arthur Miller

“God sees my name; God knows how black my sins are!”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“He was talking as though someone we both knew had just died, and it filled me with happiness. Such is art.”
― Arthur Miller

“I like to keep abreast of my ignorance”
― Arthur Miller, All My Sons

“My dreams of many years had simply become too damned real, and the reality was less than the dream and lacked all dedication.”
― Arthur Miller

“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, The Crucible

“I dreamed I had a child, and even in the dream I saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and I ran away. But it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. Until I thought, if I could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps I could sleep. And I bent to its broken face, and it was horrible…but I kissed it. I think one must finally take one’s life in one’s arms.”
― Arthur Miller, After the Fall

“If I strike oil I'll send you a check. Meantime forget I'm alive”
― Arthur Miller, Death Of A Salesman

“Every generation looks back longingly to an earlier age when things were simpler and clearer, a time before degeneration began.”
― Arthur Miller

“Forgive me, dear. I can’t cry. I don’t know what it is, I can’t cry. I don’t understand it. Why did you ever do that? Help me Willy, I can’t cry. It seems to me that you’re just on another trip. I keep expecting you. Willy, dear, I can’t cry. Why did you do it? I search and search and I search, and I can’t understand it, Willy. I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home.
We’re free and clear.
We’re free.
We’re free... We’re free...”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“God’s power is love without limit. But when a man dares reach for that... he is only reaching for the power.”
― Arthur Miller, After the Fall

“We invent ourselves, Vic, to wipe out what we know.”
― Arthur Miller, The Price

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

“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!”
― Arthur Miller

“I may think of you softly from time to time. But I’ll cut my hand before I ever reach for you again”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“A fart on Thomas Putnam.”
― Arthur Miller

“Oh, no, he'll come back. We all come back, Kate. These private little revolutions always die... Frank is right- every man does have a star. The star of one's honesty. And you spend your life groping for it, but once it's out it never lights again.”
― Arthur Miller, All My Sons

“. . . we are only what we always were, but naked now.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

“Don’t you understand what I’m talking about? He’s going to kill himself, don’t you know that?”
― Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

“Why must everybody conquer the world?”
― Arthur Miller

“Mi a jelszó manapság? Az, hogy: cserélhető. Minél inkább eldobható valami, annál szebb – a kocsi, a bútor, a feleség, a gyerekek –, minden legyen cserélhető. Mert, kérem, manapság a legfőbb dolog a vásárlás. Régen, ha mondjuk valaki boldogtalan volt, nem tudta, mit kezdjen magával, akkor elment a templomba vagy forradalmat csinált, valami volt. De ma? Ha maga ma boldogtalan? Nem találja ki, mi a megváltás? Elmegy vásárolni. (…) Ha ebben az országban fél évre bezárnák az összes üzletet, itt vérfürdő lenne az Atlanti-óceántól a Csendes-óceánig.”
― Arthur Miller

“on the night the Rosenbergs were executed, the cast and audience of The Crucible stood in silence as a gesture of respect.”
― Arthur Miller, The Crucible

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

“I’m tired to the death.”
― ARTHUR MILLER , Death of a Salesman

“There was nowhere I had to be tomorrow, yet something kept pushing me to hurry and make up lost time. But lost to what? Who finds time that is lost? Time is never lost, we give it away, dump it out, character is everything, and I had not wanted to withhold myself anymore, that was all.”
― Arthur Miller