Arthur Miller Quotes

Isn't that - isn't that remarkable? Biff - he likes me!

Arthur Miller

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• I'm very well liked in Hartford. You know, the trouble is, Linda, people don't seem to take to me.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • People

• John, I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me! Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how I should say my love. It were a cold house I kept!

  

  Arthur Miller
  • House
  • Cold

• Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • May
  • Small

• Abby, 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
  • Time
  • May
  • Hand

• 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!

  

  Arthur Miller
  • God
  • Men
  • Together

• Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • People
  • Mind
  • Society

• The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Life

• The closer a man approaches tragedy the more intense is his concentration of emotion upon the fixed point of his commitment, which is to say the closer he approaches what in life we call fanaticism.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Life
  • Commitment

• I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart, Mr. Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • God
  • Heart
  • Church

• You can't eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit.

  

  Arthur Miller

• Nothing's Planted, I don't have a thing in the ground.

  

  Arthur Miller

• 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. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Heart
  • Honor
  • Tears

• Though our own hearts break, we cannot flinch; these are new times, sir. There is a misty plot afoot so subtle we should be criminal to cling to old respect and ancient friendships. I have seen too many frightful proofs in court - the Devil is alive in Salem, and we dare not quail to follow wherever the accusing finger points!

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Respect
  • Devil
  • Friendships

• Personality always wins the day.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Personality

• A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Great
  • Small

• I saw clearly only when I saw with love. Or can one ever remember love? It's like trying to summon up the smell of roses in a cellar. You might see a rose, but never the perfume. And that's the truth of roses, isn't it? - The perfume?

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Up
  • Trying
  • Truth

• After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Up

• There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!

  

  Arthur Miller

• I simply asked him if he was making any money. Is that a criticism?

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Money
  • Criticism

• 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!

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Trying
  • Why
  • Waiting

• The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Home

• Who weeps for these, weeps for corruption!

  

  Arthur Miller

• Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Boy

• A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.

  

  Arthur Miller
  • Good