Quotessence
Home / Authors / Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller Quotes

Playwright

Filter quotes by topic

AllPeopleMenIfsPlayKnowsWritingSalesmanCrucibleWayWorld

Famous Arthur Miller Quotes

“And old Dave, he'd go up to his room, y'understand, put on his green velvet slippers - I'll never forget - and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want.”

MenWantMadeAgeForgetRoomsCareersSawsFourPicksGreenLeavingPhonesI RealizedSellingNever ForgetEightyVelvetDaveBuyersSlippers
Book:Miller Plays: 1: All My Sons; Death of a Salesman; The Crucible; A Memory of Two Mondays; A View from the Bridge
Create image

“The best of our theater is standing on tiptoe, striving to see over the shoulders of father and mother. The worst is exploiting and wallowing in the self-pity of adolescence and obsessive keyhole sexuality. The way out, as the poet says, is always through.”

WaySelfMotherFatherWorstPoetStandingTheaterStriveSexualityShouldersPityAdolescenceObsessiveSelf PityTiptoesWallowingKeyholes
Book:The Collected Essays of Arthur Miller
Create image

“Those who formally rule take their signals and commands not from the electorate as a body, but from a small group of men. This group will be called the Establishment. It exists even though that existence is stoutly denied. It is one of the secrets of the American social order... A second secret is the fact that the existence of the Establishment - the ruling class - is not supposed to be discussed.”

MenFactsBodyOrderSocialSecretExistenceClassGroupsHistoricalCommandSupposed To BePropagandaDeniedEstablishmentSignalsRulingSmall GroupsSocial OrderElectorateCommand Not
Author:Arthur Miller
Create image

“The parochial snobbery of these people was partly responsible for their failure to convert the Indians. Probably they also preferred to take land from heathens rather than from fellow Christians. At any rate, very few Indians were converted, and the Salem folk believed that the virgin forest was the Devil's last preserve, his home base and the citadel of his final stand. To the best of their knowledge the American forest was the last place on earth that was not paying homage to God.”

PeopleHomeEarthChristianLastsLandDevilResponsibleFellowsFinalsRateFolksForestsPreservesVirginsHomageSatanicHeathenSnobberyCitadelsLast PlaceSalemHome Base
Book:The Crucible
Create image

“By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.”

KnowsMenMayMeanPlayHelpingFeelingsPassionBusinessAudienceOughtDramaTheaterTheatreInventionAccomplishedPrimeRoutesPlaywrightNew Relationship
Book:Miller Plays: 1: All My Sons; Death of a Salesman; The Crucible; A Memory of Two Mondays; A View from the Bridge
Create image

“God really does take our work seriously: It is wrong, it is a sin, to accept or remain in a position that you know is a mismatch for you. Perhaps that's a form of sin you've never considered - the sin of staying in the wrong job. But God did not place you on the earth to waste away your years in labor that does not employ his design or purpose for your life, no matter how much you may be getting paid for it.”

KnowsYearsMayDoeMatterEarthJobsFormPurposeSinAcceptingDesignPositionWasteLaborPaidStayingMismatchWrong Job
Author:Arthur Miller
Create image

“I’m a writer, and everything I write is both a confession and a struggle to understand things about myself and this world in which I live. This is what everyone’s work should be-whether you dance or paint or sing. It is a confession, a baring of your soul, your faults, those things you simply cannot or will not understand or accept. You stumble forward, confused, and you share. If you’re lucky, you learn something.”

IfsWorldShouldWritingSoulAcceptingStruggleShareThis WorldLuckyFaultsPaintYour SoulConfusedConfessionLucky You
Author:Arthur Miller
Create image

“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. The witch-hunt was not, however, a mere repression. It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicly his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.”

LongTurnsOpportunityIndividualSinClassGreaterBalanceVictimGuiltMereTyrannyManifestationWitchPanicHuntsRepressionAccusationIndividual FreedomOverdueWitch Hunt
Book:The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
Create image

“My conception of the audience is of a public each member of which is carrying about with him what he thinks is an anxiety, or a hope, or a preoccupation which is his alone and isolates him from mankind and in this respect at least the function of a play is to reveal him to himself so that he may touch others by virtue of the revelation of his mutuality with them. If only for this reason I regard the theater as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone.”

IfsThinkingMenShouldHumansMayReasonPlayBusinessAudienceVirtueMankindSeriousMembersAnxietyFunctionTheaterRegardRevelationsConceptionPreoccupationSerious Business
Author:Arthur Miller
Create image