Arthur Miller Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“I think the job of the artist is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“The culture of the United States has flooded the world. It's the inevitable result of a powerful culture, art. We've got an instinctive touch when it comes to the popular mind because we've had no aristocracy. It is a democratic country. And we know without knowing it, without bothering to understand it, how to reach ordinary people, sometimes with the most vulgar, worthless junk on the face of the earth, but we know how to do it [laughter].”
-- Arthur Miller -
“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.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“As a writer, I've always believed that while my work and I myself are embedded in whatever period I am writing about, clearly I am sensitive to the winds that are blowing in the culture. At the same time, I have always felt that the issue was not to deal with the problem in the abstract, but to deal with the people who are in that problem. The emphasis is on the people. The general problem begins to resolve itself even before the play is finished.”
-- Arthur Miller -
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“Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.”
-- Arthur MillerSource : FaceBook post by Arthur Miller from May 08, 2014
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“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.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.”
-- Arthur MillerSource : "Finding Your Bipolar Muse : How to Master Depressive Droughts and Manic Depression". Book by Lana R. Castle, p. 258, 2006.
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“In a dream, we are simply confronted with various loaded symbols, and where one is exhausted, it gives way to another.”
-- Arthur Miller -
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“An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.”
-- Arthur MillerSource : "The Year it Came Apart". New York magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 30, December 30, 1974 - January 6, 1975.
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“A friend of mine once said that there were only two truly national events in the history of the United States. One was the Civil War and the other one was the Depression.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.”
-- Arthur MillerSource : Harper's, Aug. 1958
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“The two greatest plays ever written were Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, and they're both about father-son relationships.”
-- Arthur Miller -
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“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.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“There is a problem on the so-called commercial stage in New York. The price of a ticket is exorbitant, and there are no longer original productions possible, apparently, on the commercial stage. They are all plays that were taken from either England or smaller theaters, off-Broadway theaters, and so on. The one justification there used to be for the commercial theater was that it originated everything we had, and now it originates nothing. But the powers that be seem perfectly content to have it that way. They don't risk anything anymore, and they simply pick off the cream.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“Theater is a very changeable art. It responds to the moment in history the way the newspaper does, and there's no predicting what to come up with next.”
-- Arthur Miller -
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“The problem was to sustain at any cost the feeling you had in the theater that you were watching a real person, yes, but an intense condensation of his experience, not simply a realistic series of episodes.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“People do look to others for some leadership, and it's not bad for them to supply it when they feel that way.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“If a person measures his spiritual fulfillment in terms of cosmic visions, surpassing peace of mind, or ecstasy, then he is not likely to know much spiritual fulfillment. If, however, he measures it in terms of enjoying a sunrise, being warmed by a child's smile, or being able to help someone have a better day, then he is likely to know much spiritual fulfillment.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“Until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.”
-- Arthur MillerSource : Arthur Miller (2015). “The Crucible”, p.67, Bloomsbury Publishing
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“He wants to live on through something - and in his case, his masterpiece is his son. All of us want that, and it gets more poignant as we get more anonymous in this world.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“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!”
-- Arthur Miller -
“It is rare for people to be asked the question which puts them squarely in front of themselves”
-- Arthur Miller -
“... if you love your country why is it necessary to hate other countries?”
-- Arthur Miller -
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“The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“A playwright lives in an occupied country. And if you can't live that way you don't stay.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“Can anyone 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.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.”
-- Arthur MillerSource : Arthur Miller (2015). “After the Fall”, p.96, Bloomsbury Publishing
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“Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way.”
-- Arthur Miller -
“Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.”
-- Arthur Miller
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