Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value. Arthur Miller More Quotes by Arthur Miller More Quotes From Arthur Miller If I have any justification for having lived it's simply, I'm nothing but faults, failures and so on, but I have tried to make a good pair of shoes. There's some value in that. Arthur Miller hypnosis pairs shoes When any creativity becomes useful, it is sucked into the vortex of commercialism, and when a thing becomes commercial, it becomes the enemy of man. Arthur Miller creativity success men A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back. Arthur Miller romance running children One had the right to write because other people needed news of the inner world, and if they went too long without such news they would go mad with the chaos of their lives. Arthur Miller writing long people Whoever is writing in the United States is using the American Dream as an ironical pole of his story. People elsewhere tend to accept, to a far greater degree anyway, that the conditions of life are hostile to mans pretensions. Arthur Miller dream writing people 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 kings play people The two greatest plays ever written were Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, and they're both about father-son relationships. Arthur Miller oedipus father son There might be a dragon with five legs in my house, but no one has ever seen it. Arthur Miller legs dragons house THE PRICE grew out of a need to reconfirm the power of the past, the seedbed of current reality, and the way to possibly reaffirm cause and effect in an insane world. Arthur Miller insane-world reality past The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment. Arthur Miller abandonment finals expression A genuine invention in the realm of ideas must first emerge as an abstruse and even partial concept? At first blusha new idea appearstobe verycloseto insanity because to be new it must reverse important basic beliefs and assumptions which, in turn, have been institutionalized and are administered by one or another kind of priesthood with a vested interest in an old idea. Arthur Miller important insanity ideas 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. Arthur Miller business men thinking Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it's a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still — that's how you build a future. Arthur Miller summer morning school Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief-optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man. Arthur Miller optimistic men lying ... vulgarity has no nation. Arthur Miller vulgarity nations The success of a play, especially one's first success, is somewhat like pushing against a door which is suddenly opened that was always securely shut until then. For myself, the experience was invigorating. It suddenly seemed that the audience was a mass of blood relations, and I sensed a warmth in the world that had not been there before. It made it possible to dream of daring more and risking more. Arthur Miller dream doors blood I know that my works are a credit to this nation and I dare say they will endure longer than the McCarran Act. Arthur Miller endure dare credit For the political world, I have come to believe, is fundamentally beyond anyone's control, yet we all go on as though it were a kind of vehicle that only needs a change of drivers in order to steer it away from its frequent hair-raising visits to the edge of the cliff. Arthur Miller hair order believe I am a good woman. I know it. Arthur Miller good-woman knows It may be that even if half consciously, we choose our personalities to maintain a certain saving balance in the family's little universe. Arthur Miller balance half personality
