Arthur Miller Quotes

John Proctor’s flaw is his failure, until the last moment, to distinguish guilt from responsibility; America’s is to believe that it is at the same time both guilty and without flaw.

More Weight. Giles Corey

The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon — such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas.

I am sick of meetings; cannot the man turn his head without he have a meeting?

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.

Everything influences playwrights. A playwright who isn't influenced is never of any use.

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

The concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon — such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas. When it is recalled that until the Christian era the underworld was never regarded as a hostile area, that all gods were useful and essentially friendly to man despite occasional lapses; when we see the steady and methodical inculcation into humanity of the idea of man’s worthlessness — until redeemed — the necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church or church-state.

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

It was in my twenties that I felt old, that was when time was an abrasive wheel grinding me down. But it was not so much death I feared as insignificance.

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.

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

I know what's wrong with me - I could never stand still for death! Which you've got to do by a certain age, or be ridiculous - you've got to stand there nobly and serene, and let death run his tape on your arms and around your belly and up your crotch until he's got you fitted for that black suit. And I can't, I won't!... So I'm left with wrestling with this anachronistic energy which God has charged me with and I will use it till the dirt is shoveled in my mouth! Life! Life! Fuck death and dying!

Do I raise the dead when I put him behind bars? Then what'll I do it for? 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!

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