Arthur Miller Quotes

Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots.

Nobody's all good or bad, and nobody's all light or dark. Every human being has so many different aspects and facets to them. And there can be something noble and something really dark and dangerous going on in a person all at the same time.

Of course, we're all a mass of contradictions.

I don't feel like a 40-year-old. I feel more like four 10-year-olds, each pulling in a different direction.

There's something in human nature that says we need to have at least one symbolic place where chaos and dark desires can live.

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

The world asks us to be quickly readable, but the thing about human beings is that we are more than one thing. We are multiple selves. We are massively contradictory.

I feel like humans, when you're faced with decisions, you can go up and down: duality.

Men love their vices and hate them at the same time.

We as beings are very contradictory, complicated creatures that work in our best interest and against our best interest. In a certain way, I want my work to have all that messiness.

Often the best in us springs from the worst in us.

The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.

And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.

She knew, of course that she was being supremely unfair, that Franz was the best man she ever had- he was intelligent, he understood her paintings, he was handsome and good-but the more she thought about it, the more she longed to ravish his intelligence, defile his kindheartedness, and violate his powerless strength

One realizes after a long time that, actually, we are contradictory, all of us.

The heart and the mind, what an enigma.

Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?

I see and praise what is better, but follow what is worse.

two souls, alas, are housed within my breast, and each will wrestle for the mastery there.

We cannot possibly imagine the variety of contradictions in every heart.

What does it mean when nightmares dream of peace? When shadows wish for light?

I'm addicted to perfection. Problem with my life is I was always also addicted to chaos. Perfect chaos.

In civilized societies, we spend our lifetimes trying to become what is socially acceptable. We're dark and we're light. We all have both sides to us.

She wanted him to stop, but more than that, she wanted him to go on forever.

We all have a Monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind.