Arthur Miller Quotes - Page 4

The very impulse to write springs from an inner chaos crying for order - for meaning.

A play's an interpretation. It is not a report. And that is the beginning of its poetry because, in order to interpret, you have to distort toward a symbolic construction of what happened, and as that distortion takes place, you begin to leave out and overemphasize and consequently deliver up life as a unity rather than as a chaos, and any such attempt, the more intense it is, the more poetic it becomes.

It is rare for people to be asked the question which puts them squarely in front of themselves

Great drama is great questions or it is nothing but technique. I could not imagine a theater worth my time that did not want to change the world.

The camera has its own kind of consciousness; in the lens the Garden of Eden itself would become ever so slightly too perfect.

A playwright lives in an occupied country. And if you can't live that way you don't stay.

An idol tells people exactly what to believe, God presents them with choices they have to make for themselves. The difference is far from insignificant; before the idol men remain dependent children, before God they are burdened and at the same time liberated to participate in the decisions of endless creation.

The car, the furniture, the wife, the children - everything has to be disposable. Because you see the main thing today is - shopping.

Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

In America, any man who is not a reactionary in his views is open to the charge of alliance with the Red hell.

A lot of my work goes to the center of where we belong--if there is any root to life -because nowadays the family is broken up, and people don't live in the same place for very long.

I regard the theatre as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone.

The Greeks used to use the same stories, the same mythology, time after time, different authors. There was no premium placed upon an original story, and indeed, Shakespeare likewise. A lot of people wrote plays about great kings. They didn't expect a brand-new story. It was what that new author made of the old story. It is probably the same now. We disguise it by inventing what seem to be new stories, but they're basically the same story anyway.

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

Success, instead of giving freedom of choice, becomes a way of life. There's no country I've been to where people, when you come into a room and sit down with them, so often ask you, "What do you do?" And, being American, many's the time I've almost asked that question, then realized it's good for my soul not to know. For a while! Just to let the evening wear on and see what I think of this person without knowing what he does and how successful he is, or what a failure. We're ranking everybody every minute of the day.

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.

The American Dream is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American writing plays itself out.

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

Don't take it on yourself. Forget now. Live.

Chris: I don't know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer.

I am bewildered by the death of love. And my responsibility for it.

...an everlasting funeral marches round your heart.

Success, instead of giving freedom ofchoice, becomes a way of life.

I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.

But we are mostly what we are, and the turtle stretching toward delicious buds on high does not lighten his carapace by his resolve.