Quotes from Arthur Miller

I can. And there's your first marvel, that I can. You have made your magic now, for now 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. (Elizabeth, in a burst of terror, rushes to him and weeps against his hand.) Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them. Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!

John – tell me, are we lost?

She could reach up to the table and take a cookie or a spoon. She could stand at the window and look outside. She could do a lot of things now which she could not do when she was a little baby.

The growing sensitivity of people to any sort of open and frank discussion of important issues is no service to civilisation, let alone law and order. I wrote a play about a man who happened to be a salesman, and several organisations of sales people flew to arms. Now it is the lawyers. If I am to back away from these objections you must surely see that I shall be forced to write about people with no occupation whatever.

The wedding of Christianity or Judaism with nationalism is lethal.

The enemy is within, and within stays within, and we can't get out of within.

I personally think that what the big (writers) have in common is a fierce moral sensibility, which is unquenchable and they are all burning with the same anger at the way the world is. The little ones have made a peace with it, and the bigger ones can't make any peace.

On the day the world is blown up, the playwright whose show opened the night before will be leafing past the news section of the Times to find his review--as he ascends through the stratosphere, oblivious.

The house is two stories high and has seven rooms. It would have cost perhaps fifteen thousand in the early twenties when it was built.

Because he's only a little boat looking for a harbor.

knowing smile on his face: What's this mischief here?

Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day.

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!

Keller: You've got a business here, what the hell is this? Chris: The business! The business doesn't inspire me. Keller: Must you be inspired? Chris: Yes. I like it an hour a day. If I have to grub for money all day long at least at evening I want it beautiful. I want a family, I want some kids, I want to build something I can give myself to. Annie is in the middle of that.

See, Biff, everybody around me is so false that I'm constantly lowering my ideals . . .

A character is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from.

to go, Pop. Every muscle is ready. WILLY [at the edge of the apron]: You realize what

We must re-imagine liberty in every generation, especially since a certain number of people are always afraid of it.

Cleave to no faith when faith brings blood.

Man, remember, until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.

I'm losing weight, you notice, Pop?

All organisation is and must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and prohibition just as two objects cannot occupy the same space

In moments of exhaustion, I think for some reason of writing an autobiography--proper work for tired artists--but every autobiographer must secretly believe he has triumphed in life. Maybe, incidentally, this accounts for the paucity of women's autobiographies--they know better.

Work a lifetime to pay off a house. you finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it.