Quotes from Arthur Miller

Certain things have to be, the sun has to rise.

Every man does have a star. the star of one's honesty. and you spend your life groping for it, but once its out it never lights again.

To admit what you see endangers principles.

I stopped middle of that I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and 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?

Ah, it's a dog's life. I only wish during the war they'd a took me in the army. I coulda been dead by now.

Who worked for nothin' in that war? When they work for nothin', I'll work for nothin'. Did they ship a gun or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price? Is that clean? It's dollars and cents, nickels and dimes; war and peace, it's nickels and dimes, what's clean? Half the Goddam country is gotta go if I go! That's why you can't tell me.

HALE, to Parris, trying to contain himself: Is every defense an attack upon the court? Can no one—?

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...

We used to shoot a man who acted like a dog, but honor was real there, you were protecting something. But here? This is the land of the great big dogs, you don't love a man here, you eat him! That's the principle ; the only one we live by.

MONCEAU: In my opinion you're hysterical. After all, they were picking up Jews in Germany for years before the war, they've been doing it in Paris since they came in—are you telling me all those people are dead? Is that really conceivable to you? War is war, but you still have to keep a certain sense of proportion. I mean Germans are still people.

ANN: Nobody was dressed so he drove over to the depot to pick up my brother. SUE: Oh, your brother's in? ANN: Yeah, they ought to be here any minute now. Will you have a cold drink? SUE: I will, thanks. Ann goes to table and pours. My husband. Too hot to drive me to beach.—Men are like little boys; for the neighbors they'll always cut the grass.

They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it has helped and hurt us.

Yes, the day the world ended and nobody was innocent again. God, how swiftly it all fell down!

Gotta break your neck to see a star in this yard.

No man only needs a little salary.

Why must everybody like you? Who liked J. P. Morgan? Was he impressive? In a Turkish bath he'd look like a butcher. But with his pockets on he was very well liked.

FRANK, peeved: The trouble with you is, you don't believe in anything. JIM: And your trouble is that you believe in anything. You didn't see my kid this morning, did you?

PARRIS: I want a mark of confidence, is all! I am your third preacher in seven years. I do not wish to be put out like the cat whenever some majority feels the whim.

LEBEAU: How about some solidarity with Gypsies? Just because they don't work nine to five? WAITER—a small man, middle-aged, still wearing his apron: I know this one. I've made him go away a hundred times. He and his wife stand outside the café with a baby, and they beg. It's not even their baby. LEBEAU: So what? They've still got a little imagination.

CAPTAIN: Try to avoid taking anybody out of a crowd. Just cruise around the way we did before, and take them one at a time. There are all kinds of rumors. We don't want to alarm people.

MOTHER: What more can we be! CHRIS: You can be better! Once and for all you can know there's a universe of people outside and you're responsible to it, and unless you know that you threw away your son because that's why he died.

once upon a time I used to think that when I got money again I would have a maid and my wife would take it easy. Now I got money, and I got a maid, and my wife is workin' for the maid.

What ideology, I wondered, was not based on a principled denial of the facts?

MONCEAU: It was an absolutely idiotic accident. I was rooming with another actor, a gentile. And he kept warning me to get out. But naturally one doesn't just give up a role like that. But one night I let myself be influenced by him. He pointed out that I had a number of books which were on the forbidden list—of Communist literature—I mean things like Sinclair Lewis, and Thomas Mann, and even a few things by Friedrich Engels, which everybody was reading at one time.