Arthur Miller citáty
Arthur Miller
Datum narození: 17. říjen 1915
Datum úmrtí: 10. únor 2005
Arthur Miller byl americký dramatik a esejista. V letech 1956–1961 byl manželem Marilyn Monroe.
V roce 1962 se oženil potřetí. Jeho manželkou a celoživotní partnerkou se stala Inge Morath – původem Rakušanka, významná fotografka, členka fotografické agentury Magnum Photos, představitelka humanistické fotografie .
Citáty Arthur Miller
„Truchlím nad tím, že nevěřím v Boha, protože byl ke mně tak dobrý.“
Zdroj: [Kalendárium, ceskatelevize.cz, 2011-03-22, http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/1095927644-kalendarium/3153-vyhledavani/?searchType=date&kMonth=02&kDay=10]
„Just remember, kid, you can quicker get back a million dollars that was stole than a word that you gave away.“
Varianta: You can quicker get back a million dollars that was stolen than a word that you gave away.
Zdroj: A View from the Bridge: A Play in Two Acts
„Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.“
As quoted in Finding Your Bipolar Muse : How to Master Depressive Droughts and Manic Depression (2006) by Lana R. Castle, p. 258
„Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.“
— Arthur Miller, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
Act 1
The Ride Down Mount Morgan (1991)
Zdroj: The Ride Down Mt. Morgan
„It is always and forever the same struggle: to perceive somehow our own complicity with evil is a horror not to be borne. … much more reassuring to see the world in terms of totally innocent victims and totally evil instigators of the monstrous violence we see all about us. At all costs, never disturb our innocence.“
"With respect for Her Agony — but with Love" in LIFE magazine (7 February 1964)
Kontext: It is always and forever the same struggle: to perceive somehow our own complicity with evil is a horror not to be borne. … much more reassuring to see the world in terms of totally innocent victims and totally evil instigators of the monstrous violence we see all about us. At all costs, never disturb our innocence. But what is the most innocent place in any country? Is it not the insane asylum? These people drift through life truly innocent, unable to see into themselves at all. The perfection of innocence, indeed, is madness.
„He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.“
— Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Charley
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Kontext: Nobody dast blame this man. Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
„Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.“
— Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Linda
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Kontext: I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.
„The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy.“
Tragedy and the Common Man (1949)
Kontext: The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. Where pathos rules, where pathos is finally derived, a character has fought a battle he could not possibly have won. The pathetic is achieved when the protagonist is, by virtue of his witlessness, his insensitivity, or the very air he gives off, incapable of grappling with a much superior force.
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.
It is time, I think, that we who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time — the heart and spirit of the average man.
„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!“
— Arthur Miller, The Crucible
John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)
Kontext: 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!
„A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between.“
— Arthur Miller, The Crucible
Deputy Governor Danforth
The Crucible (1953)
Kontext: A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time — we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world.
„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, The Crucible
John Proctor
The Crucible (1953)
Kontext: 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.
„My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering“
1963 interview, used in The Century of the Self (2002)
Kontext: My argument with so much of psychoanalysis, is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering; that the problem is not to undo suffering or to wipe it off the face of the earth but to make it inform our lives, instead of trying to cure ourselves of it constantly and avoid it, and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of what they call "happiness." There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age, which is power-mad.
„He is a kind of psychic journalist, even when he's great.“
Paris Review (Summer 1966)
Kontext: A playwright … is … the litmus paper of the arts. He's got to be, because if he isn't working on the same wave length as the audience, no one would know what in hell he was talking about. He is a kind of psychic journalist, even when he's great.
„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.“
Paris Review (Summer 1966)
Kontext: 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.
