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

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

Understanding the Quote: "the world is an oyster but you don't crack it open on..."

This quote by Arthur Miller reflects deeply on the theme of oysters. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Oysters, Cracks, World, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Arthur Miller interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller is celebrated for insightful thoughts on oysters and cracks. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Oysters
Cracks
World
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Self
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Way
Playwright
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Editing
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Play
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Mind
Liberty
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Men
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Sometimes
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Suicidal
Two
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Fronts
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Moving
Play
Effort
I Would Be Twenty Before I Learned How To Be Fifteen, Thirty Before I Knew What It Meant To Be Twenty, And Now At Seventy-two I Have To Stop Myself From Thinking Like A Man Of Fifty Who Has Plenty Of Time Ahead.
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Thinking
Two
... Vulgarity Has No Nation.
Vulgarity
Nations
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Years
Design
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Men
Earthquakes
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Crucible
Principles
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Needs
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Technique
World
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Two
Giving
Weight
No One Wants The Truth If It Is Inconvenient.
Honesty
Want
Ifs
A Good Newspaper, I Suppose, Is A Nation Talking To Itself.
Inspiration
Talking
Journalism
They Tried To Escape Technology, To Stay Away From That And Still Have Relationships With Their Fellow Humans. Very Difficult.
Technology
Difficult
Humans
A Doctor Could Make A Million Dollars If He Could Figure Out A Way To Bring A Boy Into The World Without A Trigger Finger.
Boys
Doctors
Dollars
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.
Dream
Doors
Blood
Most Of The Time We Settle For Half And I Like It Better, Even As I Know How Wrong He Was And His Death Useless, I Tremble For I Confess That Something Peversley Pure Calls To Me From His Memory
Memories
Half
Useless
The Devil Is Precise; The Marks Of His Presence Are Definite As Stone.
Crucible
Devil
Stones
The Two Greatest Plays Ever Written Were Hamlet And Oedipus Rex, And They're Both About Father-son Relationships.
Father
Son
Oedipus
I Regard The Theatre As A Serious Business, One That Makes Or Should Make Man More Human, Which Is To Say, Less Alone.
Men
Theatre
Serious Business
Oh,elizabeth, Your Justice Would Freeze Beer.
Beer
Justice
Crucible
I Think The Job Of The Artist Is To Remind People Of What They Have Chosen To Forget.
Art
Jobs
Thinking
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.
Success
Country
Thinking
The Closer A Man Approaches Tragedy The More Intense Is His Concentration Of Emotion Upon The Fixed Point Of His Commitment, Which Is To Say The Closer He Approaches What In Life We Call Fanaticism.
Life
Commitment
Tragedy
I'm The End Of The Line; Absurd And Appalling As It May Seem, Serious New York Theater Has Died In My Lifetime.
New York
Lines
May
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
Night
Parent
Crucible
Playwriting Is An Oral Art; It's Not An Art Of A Writer Expecting To Be Read But A Writer Expecting To Be Heard.
Art
Expecting
Playwriting
A Suicide Kills Two People, That's What It's For!
Death
Suicide
Two
Everything We Are Is At Every Moment Alive In Us.
Alive
Moments
The Enemy Is Within, And Within Stays Within, And We Can't Get Out Of Within.
Enemy
A Small Man Can Be Just As Exhausted As A Great Man.
Men
Exhausted
Small Man
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.
People
Suffering
Want
The Mission Of The Theatre, After All, Is To Change, To Raise The Consciousness Of People To Their Human Possibilities.
People
Theatre
Consciousness
The Parochial Snobbery Of These People Was Partly Responsible For Their Failure To Convert The Indians. Probably They Also Preferred To Take Land From Heathens Rather Than From Fellow Christians. At Any Rate, Very Few Indians Were Converted, And The Salem Folk Believed That The Virgin Forest Was The Devil's Last Preserve, His Home Base And The Citadel Of His Final Stand. To The Best Of Their Knowledge The American Forest Was The Last Place On Earth That Was Not Paying Homage To God.
Christian
Home
Land
The Concentration Camp Is The Final Expression Of Human Separateness And Its Ultimate Consequence. It Is Organized Abandonment.
Expression
Finals
Abandonment
A Man Is Not A Bird, To Come And Go With The Springtime.
Men
Bird
Springtime
Be Liked And You Will Never Want.
Friendship
Want
Salesman
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.
Kings
Play
People
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!
Lying
Dust
Names
Why Am I Trying To Become What I Don’t Want To Be … When All I Want Is Out There, Waiting For Me The Minute I Say I Know Who I Am.
Who I Am
Waiting
Trying
I Speak My Own Sins; I Cannot Judge Another. I Have No Tongue For It.
Hysteria
Judging
Crucible
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.
Talking
Nitrogen
Done
The Shadow Of A Cornstalk On The Ground Is Lovely, But It Is No Denial Of Its Loveliness To See As One Looks On It That It Is Telling The Time Of Day, The Position Of The Earth And The Sun, The Size Of Our Planet And Its Shape, And Perhaps Even The Length Of Its Life And Ours Among The Stars.
Stars
Lovely
Shadow
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.
God
Children
Believe
Tragedy Enlightens - And It Must, In That It Points The Heroic Finger At The Enemy Of Man's Freedom. The Thrust For Freedom Is The Quality In Tragedy Which Exalts. The Revolutionary Questioning Of The Stable Environment Is What Terrifies.
Men
Enemy
Tragedy
He's Liked, But He's Not Well Liked.
Sarcastic
Wells
Salesman
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.
Believe
Hair
Order
There Might Be A Dragon With Five Legs In My House, But No One Has Ever Seen It.
Dragons
House
Legs
Few Occasions Are As Joyous To Small Children As Funerals, Almost Better Than The Big Wedding Blowouts That Take Place At Night When It's Hard To Stay Awake. A Small Boy Will Never Be Harshly Criticized At A Funeral; He Is More Treasured As Death Comes Close And All His Wickedness Vanishes Before The Inescapable Fact That Thank God, He Is Healthy.
Children
Boys
Night
A Play Is Made By Sensing How The Forces In Life Simulate Ignorance-you Set Free The Concealed Irony, The Deadly Joke.
Writing
Ignorance
Play
In The Theater, While You Recognized That You Were Looking At A House, It Was A House In Quotation Marks. On Screen, The Quotation Marks Tend To Be Blotted Out By The Camera.
House
Cameras
Quotation Marks
I Came Out Of A Culture In Which My Uncle, My Father - They Were All Salesmen Of One Kind Or Another. My Father Was A Manufacturer. He Also, In Effect, Had To Sell That Stuff. And If He Didn't Literally Do It, His Men Did. So, Selling Was In The Air Through My Boyhood. The Whole Idea Of Successfully Selling Was Very Important.
Uncles
Father
Men
The Wedding Of Christianity Or Judaism With Nationalism Is Lethal.
Christianity
Judaism
Nationalism
Now Hell And Heaven Grapple On Our Backs And All Our Old Pretense Is Ripped Away. Aye, And God's Icy Wind Will Blow.
Blow
Wind
Heaven
Data Is A Lot Like Humans: It Is Born. Matures. Gets Married To Other Data, Divorced. Gets Old. One Thing That It Doesn't Do Is Die. It Has To Be Killed.
Data
Married
Born
If I Have To Be Alone I Want To Be By Myself.
Want
Ifs
...an Everlasting Funeral Marches Round Your Heart.
Heart
Funeral
March
The Jungle Is Dark But Full Of Diamonds, Willy.
Dark
Diamond
Salesman
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.
Writing
Long
People
When A Deposit Bottle Is Broken, You Don't Get Your Nickel Back.
Broken
Bottles
Nickels
In His Play Depicting The Salem Witch Trials, The Author Illustrates Profound Psychological Bullying. The Ringleader Of Young Girls Suspected Of Unsavory Conduct, Frightens Her Friends Into Silence By Warning: Now, Look You; All Of You. We Danced. And Tituba Conjured Ruth Putnam's Dead Sisters, And That Was All. ... 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.
Girl
Bullying
Night
That Is A Very Good Question. I Don't Know The Answer. But Can You Tell Me The Name Of A Classical Greek Shoemaker?
Names
Greek
Good Questions
. . Usually, The Biggest Problems Of Adapting Plays Into Screenplays Is That They Stick Too Close To The Play, And I Think Film Is A Completely Different Medium. I Think A Novel Is Much Closer To A Film.
Thinking
Play
Different
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.
Spiritual
Children
Mind
After All The Highways, And The Trains, And The Appointments, And The Years, You End Up Worth More Dead Than Alive.
Years
Alive
Ends
I'm Sure There Are Writers Who Are Great Businessmen, But I Never Met Any.
Great Business
Mets
Businessman
Trending Author
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Category
Information