Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Arthur Miller
Age: 89 †
Born: 1915
Born: October 17
Died: 2005
Died: February 10
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
New York City
New York
Arthur Asher Miller
History
Next
Changeable
Moments
Responds
Art
Predicting
Doe
Newspaper
Come
Newspapers
Way
Theater
Moment

More quotes by Arthur Miller

Image
The Crucible became by far my most frequently produced play, both abroad and at home. Its meaning is somewhat different in different places and moments. I can almost tell what the political situation in a country is when the play is suddenly a hit there it is either a warning of tyranny on the way or a reminder of tyranny just past.
Arthur Miller
Image
I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.
Arthur Miller
Image
Certainly the most diverse, if minor, pastime of literary life is the game of Find the Author.
Arthur Miller
Image
Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.
Arthur Miller
Image
Nevertheless, one learned very early that books had to be respected they were all putative Bibles and to some small degree had a share in holiness.
Arthur Miller
Image
Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.
Arthur Miller
Image
The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.
Arthur Miller
Image
The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy.
Arthur Miller
Image
We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!
Arthur Miller
Image
By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.
Arthur Miller
Image
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
Image
That is a very good question. I don't know the answer. But can you tell me the name of a classical Greek shoemaker?
Arthur Miller
Image
The very impulse to write springs from an inner chaos crying for order - for meaning.
Arthur Miller
Image
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
Image
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.
Arthur Miller
Image
If you analyse anything, you destroy it.
Arthur Miller
Image
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
Image
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.
Arthur Miller
Image
Every time I am reading actors I can pretty well tell which ones have studied with Meisner. It is because they are honest and simple and don't lay on complications that aren't necessary.
Arthur Miller
Image
. . 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.
Arthur Miller