Death of a Salesman Quotes

A melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of grass and trees and the horizon. The curtain rises. Before us is the Salesman’s house. We are aware of towering, angular shapes behind it, surrounding it on all sides. Only the blue light of the sky falls upon the house and forestage; the surrounding area shows an angry glow of orange.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Even before a character enters or speaks, we are introduced to some of the important themes and figures of speech in these stage directions, the first words of the play. Music is heard and flute is personified, as it tells of a pastoral and idyllic scene of grass and trees. This sets a peaceful tone. When the curtain rises, the house of salesman Willy Loman is revealed. Having a home of one’s own is one of the most frequently cited examples of having attained the American Dream. But the Loman dream and home appear to be under threat. The city has encroached on the house, now surrounded on all sides by towering skyscrapers, suggesting that Willy is trapped in his big dreams. The "angry glow of orange" contrasts with the image of the blue sky, creating an unsettling atmosphere and foreshadowing future events. The color orange is personified here. The passage’s theme of nature vs city symbolizes the conflict within Willy. His love of the great outdoors competes with his salesman’s dream of finding prosperity and building success in the artificial and materialistic world of the city.

We see a solid vault of apartment houses around the small, fragile-seeming home.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy’s home is the only one left on the block, which is now full of suffocating and towering apartment buildings. The home is personified as "fragile," reflecting Willy’s own emotional and mental state. Just as the vulnerable house appears under siege from urbanization and encroachment of tall apartment blocks, Willy’s hopes and dreams are under threat of being overpowered by reality.

An air of the dream clings to the place, a dream rising out of reality.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Air is personified in these opening stage directions, which describe the Loman family house. The dream is the American Dream that once seemed attainable, but has become detached from reality. The line deals with the important theme of illusion vs reality and the Lomans’ tendency towards self-deception. They are unable to distinguish between reality and they facade they live behind and this ultimately leads to their downfall.

Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy’s behavior – she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him, longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. The stage directions introduce Linda as a cheerful supportive wife who only sees the good side of husband Willy Loman’s moody personality. Deeply loving and loyal, she goes along with Willy’s fantasies and puts up with his cruel behavior so as not to hurt him. Despite Willy’s faults, she represses her own thoughts and personality to provide unconditional love and admiration for him. By refusing to criticize him and his unrealistic dreams, she may be seen to be the enabler of Willy’s self-deception and salesman’s fantasies.

I’m tired to the death. I couldn’t make it. I just couldn’t make it, Linda.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In the first scene of the play, Willy Loman explains to his wife Linda why he couldn’t make it to his sales calls that day in New England. The 63-year-old salesman is exhausted traveling from New York to England for his job. Having returned home early to New York, the mentally and physically spent Willy’s words foreshadow his suicide later in the play. They also highlight how he constantly falls short in his desperate attempts to achieve his unattainable American Dream of prosperity and success.

WILLY: I got as far as a little above Yonkers. I stopped for a cup of coffee. Maybe it was the coffee…I suddenly couldn’t drive any more. The car kept going off onto the shoulder, y’know?
LINDA: Oh. Maybe it was the steering again…Maybe it’s your glasses.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. A physically and emotionally drained Willy arrives home early to his wife Linda after struggling to drive and being a danger behind the wheel of his car. He deludes himself into blaming the coffee. Linda feeds her husband’s self-deception by putting it down to the car’s steering or his spectacles. From the very opening of the play, it appears that everything is not OK with Willy. This exchange is foreshadowing of his death in a faked car accident so that his family can collect Willy’s life insurance. We also witness Linda making excuses for her husband’s mistakes and acting as if nothing is wrong with him. Thus Linda acts as an enabler of the dysfunction in the Loman family, by ignoring and brushing aside her husband’s mistakes and mental problems.

I was driving along, you understand? And I was fine. I was even observing the scenery. You can imagine, me looking at scenery, on the road every week of my life. But it’s so beautiful up there, Linda, the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm. I opened the windshield and just let the warm air bathe over me. And then all of a sudden I’m goin’ off the road! I’m tellin’ya, I absolutely forgot I was driving. If I’d’ve gone the other way over the white line I might’ve killed somebody. So I went on again – and five minutes later I’m dreamin’ again.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Having been on the road as a traveling salesman for 34 years, Willy Loman is showing signs of mental instability. In this conversation with his wife Linda, he describes how he lapses in and out of a dream state while driving on his sales trip to New England, almost careering off the road. Willy’s difficulty in distinguishing between reality and illusion is shown here, as his mind constantly oscillates between one state and the other. This speech also deals with the theme of nature vs city. Willy rhapsodizes about the heavenly scenery of rural America that he encounters on his trip – "so beautiful up there…the trees are so thick, and the sun is warm." With his passion for nature, Willy should have taken a job ourdoors, instead of an office job. His decision to opt for a life in New York city clearly seems to be the wrong one. He is a man more in tune with the natural world who in this passage is yearning to escape and be free. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.

WILLY: I have such thoughts, I have such strange thoughts.
LINDA: Willy, dear. Talk to them again. There’s no reason why you can’t work in New York.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy arrives home to wife Linda after his aborted sales trip to New England, mentally troubled. He has confessed to lapsing into a trance-like state while driving and almost going off the road in his car. At the beginning of the play, we learn that Willy is considering suicide, admitting to having "strange" thoughts. But Linda does not confront Willy about this, despite the fact that he is in clear need of phychological help and care. She insists that he is just tired and asks him to request a job transfer to New York, so he doesn’t need to travel anymore. Linda’s failure to admit to her husband’s mental problems means that she is a classic enabler who prevents Willy from getting the help he clearly needs. Willy’s words foreshadow his suicide.

I’m the New England man. I’m vital in New England.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. This is the proud reply of a self deceiving Willy, when Linda suggests that he should transfer job to New York to save him the pressure of traveling. He mistakingly believes that his sales presence is vital in New England. Willy is in denial and cannot face the reality that his sales have decreased so he is no longer needed by his employer. He feels the need to buoy up his feeling of self-worth by insisting that he is a critical part of the company that employs him.

If old man Wagner was alive I’d a been in charge of New York now! That man was a prince, he was a masterful man. But that boy of his, that Howard, he don’t appreciate. When I went north the first time, the Wagner Company didn’t know where New England was!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy’s imagination goes into overdrive yet again. He deludes himself into believing that he is a great businessman who would be given a top job in the company if his old boss were still alive. The reality is, as we learn later, he is a salesman working for commission, with no guaranteed salary and has to borrow money from a neighbor to live.

Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there’s nobody to live in it.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. A pessimistic Willy is hit by the realization of the pointlessness of working hard all his life to to pay for his own home, only for his sons to leave him and him to grow old and die. This quote is linked to Willy’s feeling of failure to achieve the American Dream. It’s also about the themes of abandonment and family. His words are echoed by wife Linda at the end of the play in the Requiem. As she mourns her husband’s death by suicide, she says over Willy’s grave: "I made the last payment on the house today. Today, dear. And there’ll be nobody home."

LINDA: Well, dear, life is a casting off. It’s always that way.
WILLY: No, no, some people – some people accomplish something.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Linda is speaking to Willy about their two adults sons who have returned to live with them. She uses a knitting metaphor to compare life to finishing a completed, knitted item with a tying off stitch to prevent it from unraveling. As the voice of reason, she tries to get her husband to understand that not everything in life can be controlled. But Willy subscribes completely to the American Dream of prosperity and success and cannot fathom why he has achieved so little in this regard.

WILLY: How can he find himself on a farm? Is that a life? A farmhand? In the beginning, when he was young, I thought, well, a young man, it’s good for him to tramp around, take a lot of different jobs. But it’s more than ten years now and he has yet to make thirty-five dollars a week!
LINDA: He’s finding himself, Willy.
WILLY: Not finding yourself at the age of thirty-four is a disgrace!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy is bitterly disappointed at son Biff when he returns home from the West after working as a farmhand for a few dollars a week. He views Biff’s failure to achieve financial success as a kind of betrayal of his own expections for his 34-year-old elder and favorite son. He feels Biff is wasting away his life working on a Texas farm. The irony is that Willy himself often yearns for the simpler life away from the city and close to nature, the one his son has been living. Linda defends Biff saying he is still trying to find himself.

Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such – personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff – he’s not lazy.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Early in the play Willy reveals his skewed version of the American Dream, believing that the country rewards someone who is a hard worker, physically attractive and well liked. His son Biff has these attributes, he feels, but he is just lost. Willy has fallen out with his son because in his eyes he hasn’t accomplished anything and has been working as a low paid farm worker.

WILLY: Why do you get American when I like Swiss?
LINDA: I just thought you’d like a change – .
WILLY: I don’t want a change! I want Swiss cheese. Why am I always being contradicted?
LINDA (with a covering laugh): I thought it would be a surprise.
WILLY: Why don’t you open a window in here, for God’s sake?
LINDA (with infinite patience): They’re all open, dear.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. This exchange shows how Willy likes routine and hates change. It also demonstrates how Linda goes out of her way to make her husband happy, but he on the other hand doesn’t treat her well. When she changes his cheese and offers him American whipped instead of Swiss, she is shouted at by an uncompromising Willy.

The street is lined with cars. There’s not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don’t grow any more, you can’t raise a carrot in the back yard. They should’ve had a law against apartment houses. Remember those two beautiful elm trees out there? When I and Biff hung the swing between them?

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy to Linda. Willy bemoans that what’s left of the natural environment in Brooklyn, New York, is being overtaken and swallowed up by urbanization. The expanding city with its apartment blocks is encroaching on the fresh air, the grass, the gardens and the trees. Willy sees this kind of rampant capitalist growth and commercialism as destroying nature.

There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! Population is getting out of control. The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And another one on the other side.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy is commenting on how out of control post-war American capitalism is with rampant urbanization is destroying the country. He feels trapped in his city home with tall apartment blocks built all around him, leading to the denudation of nature in urban centers like Brooklyn.

HAPPY: He stops at a green light and then it turns red and he goes. (He laughs.)
BIFF: Maybe he’s color-blind.
HAPPY: Pop? Why he’s got the finest eye for color in the business. You know that.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Happy and Biff joke about their father’s growing mental instability. Making light of Willy’s bad driving, his unsympathic sons prefer to see the funny side of his inability to see reality rather than the danger. This passage is full of irony and foreshadowing of Willy’s suicide by car crash.

HAPPY (with a deep sentiment): Funny, Biff, y’know? Us sleeping in here again? The old beds. (He pats his bed affectionately.) All the talk that went across those two beds, huh? Our whole lives.
BIFF: Yeah. Lotta dreams and plans.
HAPPY (with a deep and masculine laugh): About five hundred women would like to know what was said in this room. (They share a soft laugh.)

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In this exchange of male banter, Happy and Biff have a moment of nostalgia while visiting the home of their parents where they grew up. The strong family bond between the brothers is apparent as they remember the good times of their youth. Recalling the many women they were with, it is clear that Happy is a womanizer. Also that the brothers had big dreams of success that they did not fulfill. The only thing they appear to have achieved is bedding lots of women!

BIFF: Remember that big Betsy something – what the hell was her name – over on Bushwick Avenue?
HAPPY (combing his hair): With the collie dog!
BIFF: That’s the one. I got you in there, remember?
HAPPY: Yeah, that was my first time – I think. Boy, there was a pig. (They laugh, almost crudely.) You taught me everything I know about women. Don’t forget that.
BIFF. I bet you forgot how bashful you used to be. Especially with girls.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. The Loman brothers’ very unflattering view of women is on display in this banter during a visit to their parents’ home. Happy is particularly cruel and disrespectful when talking about his first sexual experience. He shows himself to be a misogynistic character as he demeaningly characterizes and body shames the female concerned "big Betsy" as a "pig." Both he and Biff share a crude laugh as they reminisce about the encounter.

BIFF: What’s he say about me?
HAPPY: I think the fact that you’re not settled, that you’re still kind of up in the air…
BIFF: There’s one or two other things depressing him, Happy.
HAPPY: What do you mean?
BIFF: Never mind. Just don’t lay it all to me.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. This passage deals with the conflict between Willy and Biff. When Biff asks if his father says anything bad about him, Happy explains that the reason for Willy’s unkindness to him is because Biff is aimless with no direction to his life. However, Biff suggests that there is more to Willy’s moodiness than that. Both brothers are right. Willy is upset over what he sees as Biff’s lack of progress in job and career, but Willy also feels a disappointment to himself and his family. Biff is also hinting that he knows something bad about his father, a secret he doesn’t share with Happy. We learn later that the teenage Biff walked in on Willy having an affair with a woman in a Boston hotel room. This revelation is foreshadowed here.

I don’t know what the future is. I don’t know – what I’m supposed to want.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In a conversation with brother Happy, Biff voices uncertainty about his future. This is after Happy tells him how their father believes Biff is not settled and is a young man "still kind of up in the air." Biff’s response reflects feelings of being lost and aimless, as he is pressured by his father to succeed and realize Willy’s idea of the American Dream. But Biff’s own desire is to work outdoors in the West – we soon learn that he is working on a Texas ranch and is happy there. The competing wishes of father and son are evident here.
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