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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.

-Arthur Miller

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Success, Instead Of Giving

Arthur Miller

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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.

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Playwriting Is An Oral Art; It's Not An Art Of A Writer Expecting To Be Read But A Writer Expecting To Be Heard.

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Quotation Marks

Let Either Of You Breathe A Word, Or The Edge Of A Word, About The Other Things, And I Will Come To You In The Black Of Some Terrible Night And I Will Bring A Pointy Reckoning That Will Shudder You. And You Know I Can Do It; I Saw Indians Smash My Dear Parents' Heads On The Pillow Next To Mine, And I Have Seen Some Reddish Work Done At Night, And I Can Make You Wish You Had Never Seen The Sun Go Down! - Abigail

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A Good Newspaper, I Suppose, Is A Nation Talking To Itself.

Now Hell And Heaven Grapple On Our Backs And All Our Old Pretense Is Ripped Away. Aye, And God's Icy Wind Will Blow.

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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.

Be Liked And You Will Never Want.

Whether For Good Or Evil, It Is Sadly Inevitable That All Political Leadership Requires The Artifices Of Theatrical Illusion. In The Politics Of A Democracy, The Shortest Distance Between Two Points Is Often A Crooked Line.

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.

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.

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.

Nobody Dast Blame This Man. 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.

A Playwright Lives In An Occupied Country. And If You Can't Live That Way You Don't Stay.

Betrayal Is The Only Truth That Sticks.

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I Figure I've Done What I Could Do, More Or Less, And Now I'm Going Back To Being A Chemical; All We Are Is A Lot Of Talking Nitrogen, You Know.

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... Vulgarity Has No Nation.

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A Political Policy Is Equated With Moral Right, And Opposition To It With Diabolical Malevolence.

I Think It's A Mistake To Ever Look For Hope Outside Of One's Self.

Don't Be Seduced Into Thinking That That Which Does Not Make A Profit Is Without Value.

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Try To Keep The Rebel Artist Alive In You, No Matter How Attractive Or Exhausting The Temptation.

There Might Be A Dragon With Five Legs In My House, But No One Has Ever Seen It.

They Tried To Escape Technology, To Stay Away From That And Still Have Relationships With Their Fellow Humans. Very Difficult.

I've Always Made A Point Of Not Wasting My Life, And Every Time I Come Back Here I Know That All I've Done Is To Waste My Life.

I Think The Tragic Feeling Is Invoked In Us When We Are In The Presence Of A Character Who Is Ready To Lay Down His Life, If Need Be, To Secure One Thing -- His Sense Of Personal Dignity.

And Old Dave, He'd Go Up To His Room, Y'understand, Put On His Green Velvet Slippers - I'll Never Forget - And Pick Up His Phone And Call The Buyers, And Without Leaving His Room, At The Age Of Eighty-four, He Made His Living. And When I Saw That, I Realized That Selling Was The Greatest Career A Man Could Want.

When Today Fails To Offer The Justification For Hope, Tomorrow Becomes The Only Grail Worth Pursuing.

A Play Is Made By Sensing How The Forces In Life Simulate Ignorance-you Set Free The Concealed Irony, The Deadly Joke.

...an Everlasting Funeral Marches Round Your Heart.

In A Dream, We Are Simply Confronted With Various Loaded Symbols, And Where One Is Exhausted, It Gives Way To Another.

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!

Let You Look Sometimes For The Goodness In Me, And Judge Me Not.

Without Alienation, There Can Be No Politics.

I Love Her Too, But Our Neuroses Just Don't Match.

A Character Is Defined By The Kinds Of Challenges He Cannot Walk Away From. And By Those He Has Walked Away From That Cause Him Remorse.

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.

Charley: He Won't Starve. None A Them Starve. Forget About Him. Willy: Then What Have I Got To Remember?

It Is Rare For People To Be Asked The Question Which Puts Them Squarely In Front Of Themselves

The World Is An Oyster But You Don't Crack It Open On A Mattress

I Cannot Sleep For Dreaming; I Cannot Dream But I Wake And Walk About The House As Though I'd Find You Coming Through Some Door.

I Think Now That The Great Thing Is Not So Much The Formulation Of An Answer For Myself, For The Theatre, Or The Play - But Rather The Most Accurate Possible Statement Of The Problem.

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Dmitry Medvedev

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