Death of a Salesman Money Quotes

Biff finding himself

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 expectations 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.

This farm that I work on, it’s spring there now, see? And they’ve got about fifteen new colts. There’s nothing more inspiring or – beautiful than the sight of a mare and a new colt. And it’s cool there now see? Texas is cool now, and it’s spring. And whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling my God, I’m not getting anywhere. What the hell am I doing, playing around with horses, twenty-eight dollars a week! I’m thirty-four years old, I oughta be making my future. That’s when I come running home.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In Biff’s monologue his love of nature and the countryside vs his father’s life in the city is shown. He speaks lovingly to Happy about the work he does with horses on a Texas ranch. He believes that there is nothing more inspiring than watching the new-born colts with their mothers. But in springtime Biff confesses to becoming restless and returns to his parents’ home in New York. Confused, he realizes that he doesn’t have a proper settled job, earns little money and needs to think seriously about his future.

Manufacturers offer me a hundred-dollar bill now and then to throw an order their way. You know how honest I am, but it’s like this girl, see. I hate myself for it. Because I don’t want the girl, and still, I take it and – I love it!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. As Happy chats to brother Biff in their old bedroom in their parents’ house, he brags about taking bribes from manufacturers. Even though it could be a career ending move for him, he is proud of his opportunistic and immoral behavior. A womanizer, he likens his selfish ways in the workplace to taking advantage of available women for his sexual gratification.

There was a man started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines!…The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle and comes out, the age of 21, and he’s rich! The world is an oyster, but you don’t crack it open on a mattress!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy is envious of his brother Ben becoming rich by discovering a diamond mine in Africa at the youthful age of 21. Ben is a symbol of the American Dream for Willy. In this conversation with son Happy, Willy uses the metaphor of the world as an oyster to describe how Ben succeeded in cracking it open to find diamonds not by sitting "on a mattress" but through hard work.

WILLY: No! Boys! Boys! (Young Biff and Happy appear.) Listen to this. This is your Uncle Ben, a great man! Tell my boys, Ben!
BEN: Why boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. (He laughs.) And by God I was rich.
WILLY (to the boys): You see what I been talking about? The greatest things can happen!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Willy’s flashbacks and retreats into the past are a frequent occurrence throughout the play. His deceased brother Ben appears in many of them, in the form of a memory or hallucination. Here Willy is eager for his wealthy brother Ben to tell his boys how he walked into the jungles of Africa a teenager and came out rich at 21. Willy both admires and is envious of his brother’s material success. The legendary Ben, who sounds almost too good to be real, reflects Willy’s idea of the American Dream.

BEN: William, when I walked into the jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And, by God, I was rich! (He goes off into darkness around the right corner of the house.)
WILLY: …was rich! That’s just the spirit I want to imbue them with! To walk into a jungle! I was right! I was right! I was right!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In this imagined conversation with his dead brother, Willy sees Ben’s financial success as the American Dream becoming a reality, hoping his two boys will be inspired by it. Willy wants young Biff and Happy to be like Ben, and not to be afraid to go into life’s metaphorical jungle and create their own success.

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 in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. In one of the play’s most famous speeches, Linda makes this impassioned appeal for the ordinary human being to be respected and afforded their dignity. Accepting her husband’s weaknesses, she strongly defends him to her two sons after Biff calls him crazy and says he has no character. Her soliloquy admonishes and pleads with them not to abandon him. It is her cry of insistance on the dignity of the weak, those cast aside by the system, and not just the strong. The life and death of the little man is of as much importance as that of the great man, she believes. The message of her speech is that every human being matters and no one is disposable. This includes an insignificant person like Willy, betrayed and abandoned by a capitalist system that has no further use for him. Miller uses pathos throughout the play but here it is heightened as Linda, who is devoted to Willy, asks for respect to be shown to her flawed husband. During this key moment we hear in Linda’s voice the rage of Miller as he questions the morality of a society that uses people as tools for profit and then discards them. Employing a graphic simile, Linda pleads with Biff to reconcile with his father and not abandon him so that he dies "like an old dog." Linda appears to accept the inevitability of Willy’s imminent death, which is foreshadowed here. The passage shows her deep devotion to Willy.

BIFF: Those ungrateful bastards!
LINDA: Are they any worse than his sons? When he brought them business, when he was young, they were glad to see him. But now his old friends, the old buyers that loved him so and always found some order to hand him in a pinch – they’re all dead, retired. He used to be able to make six, seven calls a day in Boston. Now he takes his valises out of the car and puts them back and takes them out again and he’s exhausted. Instead of walking he talks now. He drives seven hundred miles, and when he gets there no one knows him any more, no one welcomes him. And what goes through a man’s mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent? Why shouldn’t he talk to himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and pretend to me that it’s his pay? How long can that go on? How long? You see what I’m sitting here and waiting for? And you tell me he has no character? The man who never worked a day but for your benefit? When does he get the medal for that? Is this his reward – to turn around at the age of sixty-three and find his sons, who he loved better than his life, one a philandering bum…

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Linda delivers a long, powerful monologue to her sons in defense of Willy. It comes in response to Biff blasting his father’s employers as "ungrateful bastards" for placing him on straight commission "like a beginner, an unknown," as Linda puts it. She is aware of her husband’s failures and self-deceptions, the downward spiral in his career and mental health, his borrowing money from Charley to make ends meet. But nevertheless she is devoted to Willy and her family. Linda may display a meek nature throughout the play, but this emotional speech highlights her strength of character. She defends her husband as a hard worker and good father who sacrificed to provide for his two sons. She upbraids Biff and Happy for their neglectful behavior towards their father and not recognizing his true worth.

LINDA: All told, about two hundred dollars would carry us, dear. But that includes the last payment on the mortgage. After this payment, Willy, the house belongs to us.
WILLY: It’s twenty-five years!
LINDA: Biff was nine years old when we bought it.
WILLY: Well, that’s a great thing. To weather a twenty-five year mortgage is…
LINDA: It’s an accomplishment.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. The Lomans’ desire to own their own house represents the American Dream for them, but it can also become a burden. An upbeat Linda chats to her husband about their finances and how they have only one more payment left on their house mortgage. She puts on a cheerful tone as she helps Willy dress for his upcoming interview with his boss Howard. Sadly Willy won’t live to see the mortgage paid off. His meeting with Howard doesn’t go well, and he feels that he has to commit suicide so that the life insurance money will give his family financial security and enable them pay their bills, including the last mortgage payment.

WILLY: I don’t need much any more. If I could take home – well, sixty-five dollars a week, I could swing it…Howard, all I need to set my table is fifty dollars a week…If I had forty dollars a week – that’s all I’d need. Forty dollars, Howard.
HOWARD: Kid, I can’t take blood from a stone, I…

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy cuts a pathetic figure as he begs Howard to give him a non-traveling job on a modest salary. At first he says that he could get by on 65 dollars a week, but as Howard remains impassive to Willy’s pleas, Willy drops his price to 50 and finally 40 dollars. Howard uses a "blood from a stone" metaphor to say that he has no job available. Thoughout the exchange the younger Howard repeatedly calls Willy "kid" and adopts a condescending tone to him.

You’ve got a new continent at your doorstep, William. Get out of these cities, they’re full of talk and time payments and courts of law. Screw on your fists and you can fight for a fortune up there.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. In this imagined scene by Willy, his brother Ben urges him to abandon the city for the opportunities and prosperity of the West. Ben tells him that he has bought some timberland in Alaska and he needs a man to look after things for him. Willy is tempted by his offer: "God, timberland! Me and my boys in those grand outdoors?"

Without a penny to his name, three great universities are begging for him, and from there the sky’s the limit, because it’s not what you do. It’s who you know and the smile on your face! It’s contacts, Ben, contacts! The whole wealth of Alaska passes over the lunch table at the Commodore Hotel, and that’s the wonder, the wonder of this country, that a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked! (He turns to Biff) And that’s why when you get out on that field today it’s important. Because thousands of people will be rooting for you and loving you. (To Ben, who has again begun to leave) And Ben! When he walks into a business office his name will sound out like a bell and all the doors will open to him! I’ve seen it, Ben. I’ve seen it a thousand times! You can’t feel it with your hand like timber, but it’s there.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. A hallucinating Willy imagines that he is talking to dead brother Ben in this rant about rising star Biff. He deceives himself into believing that a glorious future awaits young Biff, the high school sports hero, because he looks good and is well liked. Willy’s creed is that these, and not hard work, are what bring prosperity and material success. He is unable to distinguish between dreams and reality. In this speech Willy uses diamonds as a metaphor for wealth and success. There are also two examples of similes. Biff’s name being spoken is compared to a bell that will open doors for him in the future. Willy talks of success as something real, even though you cannot grasp it in your hand "like timber." The sad irony is that Biff will not have a successful and prosperous career, but will fail math and won’t graduate from high school.

WILLY: This is the greatest day of his life.
CHARLEY: Willy, when are you going to grow up?
WILLY: Yeah, heh? When this game is over, Charley, you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your face. They’ll be calling him another Red Grange. Twenty-five thousand a year.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy shows an exaggerated feeling of pride in son Biff, the star of his high school football team. His self-deception and detachment from reality see him compare Biff to Red Grange, a famous American football player. Neighbor Charley tries to bring him back to earth by asking when is he going to grow up. Willy betrays his obsession with financial success by reminding Charley that Biff is on the road to earning big money.

CHARLEY: I offered you a job. You can make fifty dollars a week. And I won’t send you on the road.
WILLY: I’ve got a job.
CHARLEY: Without pay? What kind of a job is without pay? (He rises) Now look kid, enough is enough. I’m no genius but I know when I’m being insulted.
WILLY: Insulted!
CHARLEY: Why don’t you want to work for me?
WILLY: What’s the matter with you? I’ve got a job!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. This very important scene between Willy and his more successful and down to earth friend Charley highlights the contrast between the two characters. Willy asks Charley for money to pay for his insurance after he is fired from his job. Charley offers Willy both money and a job. However, an absurdly proud Willy thumbs his nose up to Charley’s generous offer of practical help. He prefers to indulge in the self-deception that he still has a job.

WILLY: Charley, I’m strapped. I don’t know what to do. I was just fired.
CHARLEY: Howard fired you?
WILLY: That snotnose. Imagine that? I named him. I named him Howard.
CHARLEY: Willy, when’re you gonna realize that them things don’t mean anything? You named him Howard, but you can’t sell that. The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell. And the funny thing is that you’re a salesman, and you don’t know that.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy admits to Charley that he has been fired from his job by his boss Howard and has no money. Taking the dismissal personally he sees it as a form of betrayal, because he was close to Howard’s father and chose Howard’s name when he was born. Charley scolds Willy for his lack of understanding of the reality of capitalism. He tells him that being "well liked" doesn’t make you rich, as much as Willy would like believe it.

WILLY: I – I just can’t work for you, Charley.
CHARLEY: What’re you, jealous of me?
WILLY: I can’t work for you, that’s all, don’t ask me why.
CHARLEY (angered, takes out more bills) You been jealous of me all your life, you damned fool. Here, pay your insurance. (He puts the money in Willy’s hand).
WILLY: I’m keeping strict accounts.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy’s pride keeps him from accepting a job offer from his friend Charley. However, it doesn’t prevent him from taking another cash bailout from his successful and generous neighbor. An angry Charley is offended and scolds Willy for turning down his offer of employment. But he goes along with the pretence that the money is a "loan" in order to save both their prides.

After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy is speaking to his friend Charley after losing his job and having had to borrow money from Charley to pay his bills. After a lifetime of working Willy is hit with the realization that he is a failure, being unable to earn enough money to sustain himself and his wife Linda. Seeing no way out of his financial difficulties, he vocalizes the idea of killing himself so that his family can collect the life insurance money. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.

Well, he left, see. And the secretary went out. I was all alone in the waiting-room. I don’t know what came over me, Hap. The next thing I know I’m in his office – paneled walls, everything. I can’t explain it. I – Hap, I took his fountain pen.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Biff confesses to Happy that after his disastrous meeting with Bill Oliver who couldn’t remember him, he steals his former boss’s fountain pen. The pen is a symbol of Oliver’s wealth and the American dream that Biff will never achieve for himself.

A man can’t go out the way, he came in, Ben, a man has got to add up to something. You can’t, you can’t – You gotta consider, now. Don’t answer so quick. Remember, it’s a guaranteed twenty-thousand-dollar proposition. Now look, Ben, I want you to go through the ins and outs of this thing with me. I’ve got nobody to talk to, Ben, and the woman has suffered, you hear me?…It’s twenty thousand dollars on the barrelhead. Guaranteed, gilt-edged, you understand?

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy has a conversation with his hallucination of brother Ben in a passage filled with despair and hope. A man has to accomplish something, he points out to Ben. Having failed in life, Willy hopes to be successful in death by leaving his family a financial legacy. His plan is to commit suicide and give his family twenty thousand pounds through his life insurance. There is irony in Willy saying that his wife Linda has suffered, because killing himself will prolong her suffering. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.

BEN: You don’t want to make a fool of yourself. They might not honor the policy.
WILLY: How can they dare refuse? Didn’t I work like a coolie to meet every premium on the nose? And now they don’t pay off? Impossible!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Ben warns Willy that his life insurance company might not honor his policy in the event of his suicide. That would mean no insurance payout to Willy’s family. We don’t know if the death was eventually ruled a suicide. Willy argues that the company cannot refuse to pay, as he has been paying into the policy for a large part of his life. This foreshadows Willy going ahead with his suicide plan so his family can collect on the insurance.

BEN: It’s called a cowardly thing, William.
WILLY: Why? Does it take more guts to stand here the rest of my life ringing up a zero?
BEN (yielding): That’s a point, William. (He moves, thinking, turns.) And twenty thousand – that is something one can feel with the hand, it is there.
WILLY (now assured, with rising power): Oh, Ben, that’s the whole beauty of it! I see it like a diamond, shining in the dark, hard and rough, that I can pick up and touch in my hand. Not like – like an appointment! This would not be another damned fool appointment, Ben, and it changes all the aspects. Because he thinks I’m nothing, see, and so he spites me. But the funeral – (Straightening up) Ben, that funeral will be massive! They’ll come from Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire! All the oldtimers with the strange license plates – that boy will be thunderstruck, Ben, because he never realized – I am known! Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey – I am known, Ben, and he’ll see it with his eyes once and for all.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. Willy, talking to his hallucination of Ben, fantasizes that he will achieve the success in death that he failed to reach in life. He has fallen short of his American Dream of acquiring material success while alive. But he believes that the twenty thousand dollars life insurance money his family will receive after his suicide will make up for that. In a simile Willy compares this money to a diamond, diamonds being the symbol of wealth used throughout the play and associated with brother Ben. Willy deceives himself into believing that his funeral will be massive and attended by many of the people who knew and worked with him. His estranged son Biff will realize how wrong he was wrong about his dad by the size of the funeral, he believes. Willy’s words turn to be ironic, since nobody outside the family apart from two neighbors turns up for the funeral. Willy’s suicide is foreshadowed here.

Dad, you’re never going to see what I am, so what’s the use of arguing? If I strike oil I’ll send you a check. Meantime forget I’m alive.

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 2. The theme of family and father and son comes into play when Biff bids goodbye to Willy and leaves the Loman home. Biff feels that he cannot have a meaningful conversation with Willy. In his parting words, he shows his love for his father. But they simply cannot live together. Willy is a selfish person who wants to live his failed American Dream of prosperity through Biff. Biff on the other hand is a lover of the ourdoors and Willy refuses to see this. He touches on Willy’s unhealthy obsession with wealth and prosperity by promising to send him a check if he strikes oil.

I am not a leader of men, Willy, and neither are you. You were never anything but a hard-working drummer who landed in the ash can like all the rest of them! I’m one dollar an hour, Willy I tried seven states and couldn’t raise it. A buck an hour! Do you gather my meaning? I’m not bringing home any prizes any more, and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!

– Arthur Miller

Death of a Salesman, Act 1. Biff gets involved in a final confrontation with Willy near the end of the play. According to stage directions he appears to be on the verge of attacking his father. Biff tries to put an end to the cycle of self-deception and take Willy down to earth and reality. He wants his father to stop deluding himself and trying to fulfill his own failed dreams through Biff. Neither of them are leaders of men as Willy believes, but just ordinary workers, he declares.
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