Death of a Salesman QUOTES
LINDA: You are, Willy. The handsomest man. You've got no reason to feel that... WILLY (corning out of The Woman's dimming area and going over to Linda): I'll make it all up to you, Linda, I'll... LINDA: There's nothing to make up, dear. You're doing fine, better than...
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"Remember those days? Biff used to simonise that car"
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(BUTTONING UP HIS JACKET AS HE UNBUTTONS IT)
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(He looks for his lighter WILLY has picked it up and gives it to him)
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(biff reaches behind the heater and draws out a length of rubber tubing. He is horrified and turns his head toward Willy's room, still dimly lit, from which the strains of Linda's desperate but monotonous humming rise)
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BEN: At that age I had a very faulty view of geography, William. I discovered after a few days that I was heading due south, so instead of Alaska, I ended up in Africa.
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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.
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BEN: doesn't take much time if you know what you're doing... You've got a new contingent on your doorstep, William. Get your of these cities, they're full of talk me payments and courts of law. Screw on your fists and you can fight fortune up there
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BERNARD: Biff where are you? you're supposed to study with me today. WILLY: what're you lookin' so anaemic about, Bernard? BERNARD: just because you printed University of Virginia on his sneakers doesn't mean they've got to graduate him
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BERNARD: he took his sneakers- remember... With the university of Virginia and he took them down in the cellar, and burned them up in the furnace. We had a fist fight. It lasted at least half a hour
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BIFF: DAD I let you down...Dad, I flunked math.
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BIFF: HAP, he's got to understand that im not the man somebody lends that kind of money to
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BIFF: He walked away. I saw him for one minute. I got so mad I could've torn the walls down! How the hell did I ever get the idea I was a salesman there? I even believed myself that I'd been a salesman for him! And then he gave me one look and —I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been! We've been talking in a dream for fifteen years. I was a shipping clerk... The next thing I know I'm in his office. I can't explain it. I —Hap, I took his fountain pen.
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BIFF: His answer was-(he breaks off, suddenly angry) Dad, you're not letting me tell you what I want to tell you
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BIFF: I did a terrible thing today... I waited six hours for him, see? All day. Kept sending my name in. Even tried to date his secretary so she'd get me to him, but no soap.
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BIFF: I hate this city and i'll stay here.
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BIFF: Mom, i don't fit in bsiness. not that i wont try. I'll try, and i'll make good.
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BIFF: One day he was late for class so I got up at the blackboard and imitated him. I crossed !t eyes and talked with a lithp WILLY: The kids like it?
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BIFF: You gotta talk to him...if he saw the kind of man you are, and you just talked to him in your way, I'm sure he'd come through for me...would you talk to him? He'd like you...you know the way you could talk
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BIFF: don't you give a damn for him hap?...you don't give a *******...he doesn't mean anything to you...you could help him. I can't ...He's going to kill himself, don't you know that?
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BIFF:" I've had twenty or thirsty different kinds of jobs since I left home...it always turns out the same. I just realised it lately...whenever spring comes to where I am, I suddenly get the feeling, my God, I'm not gettin' anywhere! What the hell am I doing...I outa be makin' my future. That's when I come running home and when I get here I don't know what to do with myself. I've always made a point of not wasting my life, and everytme I come back here I know that all I've done it to waste my life.
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BIFF:" no but when I quit he said something to me. He put his arm on my shoulder, and he said, 'Biff, if you ever need anything, come to me'"
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BIFF:" why does dad mock me all the time?...everything I say there's a twist or mockery on his face. I can't get near him"
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BIFF:" you're making money, aren't you"
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Biff: oliver talked to his partner and he came to me...I'm going to be alright...he said it was just a question of the amount!
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CHARLEY: I offered you a job WILLY: I have a job CHARLEY: without paying? What kind of a job is a job without paying?
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CHARLEY: how do you like this kid? Gonna argue a case in front of the Supreme Court WILLY: (as Charley takes out his wallet) and you never told him what to do, did you? You never took any interest in him CHARLEY: Theres some money- fifty dollars. I got an accountant inside
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CHARLEY: the only thing you got in this work is what you can sell. And the funny thing is that you're a salesman, and you don't know that
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CHARLEY: why must everybody like you?... Now listen, WILLY, I know you don't like me, and nobody can say I'm in love with you, but I'll give you a Job because- just for the hell of it
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HAPPY: No that's not my father. He's just a guy.
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Happy: you leave the house tomorrow and come back at night and say Oliver is thinking it over ...gradually it fades away
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LINDA: He's the dearest man in the world to me, I won't have anyone making him feel unwanted and low and blue...he's your father and you pay him that respect, or else you're not to come here.
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LINDA: Just mending my stockings. They're so expensive... WILLY (angrily, taking them from her): I won't have you mending stockings in this house! Now throw them out! (Linda puts the stockings in her pocket.)
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LINDA: Why must everyone conquer the world? You're well liked, and the boys love you
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WILLY (with great feeling): You're the best there is, Linda, on the road I want to grab you sometimes and just kiss the life outa you.
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WILLY: I'm not interested in any stories from the past or any crap of that kind because the woods are burning, boys, you understand? There's a big blaze going on all around. I was fired today.
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WILLY: If I'd gone with him to Alaska that time, everything would've been totally different...there was the only man I ever met who knew the answers
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WILLY: It's who you know and the smile on your face! It's contacts Ben, contacts... The wonder of this. Country, that a man can end with diamonds here on the basis of being liked!
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WILLY: Let me talk to you- I got nobody to talk to. Bernard, Bernard, was it my fault?
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WILLY: Nearly hit a kid in Yonkers. God! Why didn't I go to Alaska with my brother Ben that time! Ben! That man was a genius, that man was success incarnate! What a mistake! He begged me to go.
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WILLY: You big ignoramous, if you say that to me again I'll rap you one! I don't care how big you are(he's ready to fight)
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WILLY: You had to go and flunk math!...if you hadn't flunked math youdve been set by now!
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WILLY: beause you got greatness in you, Biff, remember that. You got all kinds a greatness...
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WILLY: bernard can get the best marks in school...but when he gets out in the business world, you're going to be five times ahead... because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, is the man who gets ahead. be liked and you will never want... I never have to wait in line to see a buyer
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WILLY: ge, on the way home tonight I'd like to buy some seeds
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WILLY: he's been doing very big things in the west. But he decided to establish himself
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WILLY: in those days I had a yearning to go to Alaska... My father lived many years in Alaska. He was an adventurous man...little streak of self-reliance in our family... I met a salesman...his name was Dave single an...and old Dave he'd go upto his roo,y'understand, put on his green velvet slippers...pick up his phone...and at the age of eighty four, he made his living. When I saw that I realised that selling was the eater gift any man could ever wan... When he died-and by the way he died the death of a salesma, in his green velvet slippers...when he died, hundreds of salesman and buyers were at his funera. Things were said on a lotta trains for months are that.
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WILLY: oh, Ben how did you do it? What is the answer?...Ben, nothing's working out. I don't know what to do
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WILLY: will you stop mending stockings? At least while I'm in the house. it gets me Nervous I can't tell you please
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WILLY: yeah. I'll put it to him straight and simple. He'll just have to take me off the road
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WILLY: you end up worth more dead than alive CHARLEY: WILLY, nobody's worth nothin' dead Willy: Charley your the only friends I've got
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WILLY: you nervous, Biff, about the game? BIFF: Not if you're gonna be there
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WILLY:" tell you a secret, boys. Don't breathe it to a soul. Someday I'll have my own business, and I'll never have to leave Home anymore."
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WILLY:" your my foundation and my support, Linda"
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WILLY:"(he stops)now isn't that peculiar! Isn't that remarkable...(He breaks off in amazement and fright as the flute is heard distantly)...I was thinking of that Chevvy (slight pause) I could've sworn I was driving that Chevvy today"
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WILLY:"How can he find himself on a farm?...Not finding yourself at the age of thirty four is a disgrace!" "The trouble is he's lazy" "Biff Logan is lost. The the greatest country in the world a young man with such-personal attractiveness, gets lost...there's one thing about Biff-he's not lazy"
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WILLY:"never leave a job till you're finished- remember that. "
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WILLY:He said MORNING and I Said YOU GOT A FINE CITY HERE MAYOR. and then he had coffee with me BIFF:Gee, I'd love to go with you sometime
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WOMAN: Gee, you are self-centered! Why so sad? You are the saddest, self -centered soul I ever did see-saw
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Woman: from now one, whenever you come to the office, I'll see that you go right through the buyers. No waiting at my desk anymore
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BEN: His flute. he played teh fruit BEN: Father was a very great and a very wild-hearted man. We would start in Boston, and he'd toss the whole family into the wagon, and then he'd drive the team right across the country; through Ohio, and Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and all the Western states. And we'd stop in the towns and sell the flutes that he'd made on the way. Great inventor, Father. With one gadget he made more in a week than a man like you could make in a lifetime
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BIFF: Screw the business world!...I don't care what they think! They've laughed at Dad for years, and you know why? Because we don't belong in this nuthouse of a city!
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BIFF:" I don't know what my future is. I don't know- what I'm supposed to want"
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BIFF:" I wonder if Oliver still thinks I stole that carton of basketballs"
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BIFF:" maybe I oughta get married. Maybe I oughta get stuck into something. Maybe that's my trouble. I'm like a boy. I'm not married, I'm not in business, I just- I'm like a boy."
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BIFF:"well, I spent six or seven years after school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business...It's a measly manner of existence...to devote your whole life to keeping stocks...or selling or buying."
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BIFF:I think I'll go to see him. If I could get ten thousand or even seven or either thousand dollars I could buy a beautiful ranch
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Biff:"his eyes are going" HAPPY:" pop? Why he's got the finest eye for colour in the business"
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CHARLEY: You want a job? WILLY: I got a job, I told you that. (After a slight pause.) What the hell are you offering me a job for? CHARLEY: Don't get insulted. WILLY: i got a good job
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Competition
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HAPPY: (looking toward where Linda went out) What a woman! They broke the mould when they made her
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HAPPY: I thought of a great idea to sell sporting goods...You and I, Biff...we have a line, the Loman Line.
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HAPPY: Pop, I told you I'm gonna retire you for life. WILLY: You'll retire me for life on seventy goddam dollars a week? And your women and your car and your apartment, and you'll retire me for life! Christ's sake, I couldn't get past Yonkers today! Where are you guys, where are you? The woods are burning! I can't drive a car!
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HAPPY: Well, let's face it: he's no hot-shot selling man. Except that sometimes, you have t admit, he's a sweet personality.
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HAPPY:" I bet he'd back you...you're well liked"
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HAPPY:" I would! Somebody with character, with resistance! Like mom"
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HAPPY:" all I can do now is wait for the merchandise manager to die. And suppose I get to be merchandise manager?...I don't know what the hell im workin' for...goddammit, I'm lonely."
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HAPPY:" everybody around me is so glade that I'm constantly lowering my ideals"
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HAPPY:" you're a poet, you know that, biff? You're a- you're an idealist!"
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HOWARD: Don't you have a radio in your car?... I appreciate that, WILLY, but there just is no spot here for you. If I had a spot I'd slam you right in, but I don't have a single solitary spot.
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HOWARD: Pull yourself together WILLY: Pull myself together! What the hell did I say to him?
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HOWARD: where are your song So? Why dot your sons give you a hands? WILLY: they're working on a big deal HOWARD: this is no time for false pride... You go to your sons and tell them that you're tired. Willy: I can't throw myself on my sons. I'm not a cripple!
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HOWARD: you can't go to Boston for us... I don't want you to represent us. I've been meaning to tell you for a long time now...I think you need a good long rest, Willy
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LINDA: "Maybe it's your glasses. You never went for your new glasses" WILLY: "No, I see everything" LINDA: "take an aspirin. Should I get you an aspirin?"
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LINDA: "WILLY, dear. Talk to them again. There's no reason why you can't work in New York." WILY: " They don't need me in net York. I'm the New England man. I'm vital in New England "
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LINDA: "you'll just have to take a rest...you didn't rest your mind. Your mind is overactive, and the mind is what counts, dear"
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LINDA: A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man
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LINDA: And the boys, Willy. Few men are idolized by their children the way you are.
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LINDA: Biff was very changed this morning. His whole attitude seemed to be hopeful. He couldn't wait to go downtown to see Oliver
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LINDA: 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...when he gets there no one knows him anymore, no one welcomes him.
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LINDA: Come up and say goodnight to him. Don't let him go to bed that way...It takes so little to mke him happy
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LINDA: He's just a big stupid man to you, but i tell you there's more good in him than in many other people... i went down the cellar...it just happened to fall out- was a length of rubber pipe-just short...there's a little attatcment on the end of it.
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LINDA: I finally decided to go down the cellar this morning and take it away and destroy it but it's gone!... oh-nothing... I'd hoped he had taken it away himself.... Because he's only a little boat looking for harbour
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LINDA: Nothing'll grow any more
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LINDA: Well, there's nine-sixty for the washing machine. And for the vacuum cleaner there's three and a half due on the fifteenth. Then the roof, you got twenty-one dollars remaining.
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LINDA: What happened to the love you had for him?... How you used to talk to him on the phone every night! how lonely he was till he could come hoem to you! BIFF: Because I know he's a fake and he doesn't like anybody around who knows!
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LINDA: When you write you're coming, he's all smiles, and talks about the future, and — he's just wonderful. And then the closer you seem to come, the more shaky he gets, and then, by the time you get here, he's arguing, and he seems angry at you. I think it's just that maybe he can't bring himself to — to open up to you. Why are you so hateful to each other? Why is that?
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LINDA:"He's crestfallen...you know he admires you...if he finds himself, then you'll both be happier and not fight anymore."
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LINDA:"you shouldn't have criticised him...You mustn't lose your temper with him." WILLY:"When the hell did I lose my temper? I simply asked if he was making any money. Is that a Criticism?"
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LINDA:You got your glasses? be careful on the subway stairs
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Linda: The insurance inspector came. He said that...all these accidents in the last year-weren't-weren't-accidents...he deliberately smashed into the railing, and it was only the hallowness of the water that saved him
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WILLY: " why don't you open a window in here...the way they boxed us up in here. Bricks and windows, windows and bricks...the street is lined with cars. there's not a breath of fresh air in the neighbourhood...remember those two beautiful elm trees out there?...they should've arrested the builder for cutting those down. They massacred the neighbourhood(LOST)
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WILLY: "(with wonder) 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 telling y'all, I absolutely forgot I was driving. If I'd gone the other way over the white line I might've killed somebody. So I went on again- and five minutes later I'm dream in' again, and I nealy... (He presses two fingers against his eyes) I have such thoughts, I have such strange thoughts.
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WILLY: "No, it's me, it's me. Suddenly I realise I'm goon' sixty miles an hour and I don't remember the last five minutes. I'm-I can't seem to- keep my mind to it "
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WILLY: "Work a lifetime to pay off a a house. You finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it"
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WILLY: "why am I always being contradicted?"
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WILLY: (to Linda) Will you stop! Will you let me talk? BIFF: I dont like you yelling at her all the time, and i'm tellin' you, that all
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WILLY: Cause I get so lonely...there's nobody to talk to. I get the feeling that I'll never sell anything again, that I won't make a living for you, or a business, a business for the boys.
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WILLY: Dad left when I was such a baby and I never had a chance to talk to him and I still feel — kind of temporary about myself.
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WILLY: Did you see the ceiling I put up in the living room? WILLY: A man who can't handle tools is not a man. You're disgusting. CHARLEY: Don't call me disgusting, Willy.
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WILLY: I know it when I walk in. They seem to laugh at me...they just pass me by. I'm not noticed. LINDA: Why? Why would they laugh at you? Don't talk that way, Willy.
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WILLY: I never asked a favour of any man. But I was with the firm when your father used to carry you in here in his arms
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WILLY: I never in my life told him anything but decent things.
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WILLY: I'm fat. I'm very-foolish to look at, Linda LINDA: Your'e the handsomest man in the world
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WILLY: If anything falls off the desk while you're talking to him-like a package or something-don't you pick it up. They have office boys for that
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WILLY: If only biff would take this house, and raise a family
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WILLY: No, you're ignorant. You gotta know about vitamins and things like that. WILLY (dealing): They build up your bones. Chemistry. CHARLEY: Yeah, but there's no bones in a heartburn.
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WILLY: The man knew what he wanted and went out and got it! Walked into a jungle, and comes out, the age of twenty-one, and he's rich! The world is an oyster, but you don't crack it open on a mattress!
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WILLY: Today, it's all cut and dried, and there's no chance for bringing friendship to bear-o personality. You see what I mean? They don't know me anymore
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WILLY: Well, to tell you the truth Howard. I've come to the decision that I would rather not travel anymore... Speaking frankly and between the two of us, y'know-I'm just a little tired
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WILLY: You and hap and I, and I'll show you all the towns. A,Eric's is so full of...understanding people. And they know me, boys they know me up and down New England...I can park my car in any street in New England, and the cops protect it like their own
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WILLY: You can eat the orange and throw the peel away-a man is not a piece of fruit!
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WILLY: You guys! There was a man started with the clothes on his back and ended up with diamond mines!
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WILLY: sometimes I'm afraid that I'm not teaching them the right kind of — Ben, how should I teach them? BEN (giving great weight to each word, and with a certain vicious audacity): 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!
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everyday i go down and take away that little rubber pipe. but, when he comes home, i put it back where it was...he put his whole life into you and you've turned your backs on him
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WILLY: "I'm tired to the death (the flute has faded away. He sits on the bed beside her, a little numb) I couldn't make it. I just couldn't make it, Linda"
"Death": his first words in play-foreshadowing his death immediate placed in position of protagonist "Flute":
CHARLEY: you've been jealous of me all your life, you famed fool
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WILLY: 'I slept like a dead one'
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