arthur miller

Esquire Features What I've Learned Arthur Miller, an Interview from 2003

When plays were written in verse, by the very nature of the language it tended toward what I call prophecy. The energy of springing out of the dead level of contemporary reality. And we don't write that way much anymore, so something else has to enter—this spirit of coming disaster or coming happiness or something coming.

I believe in work. If somebody doesn't create something, however small it may be, he gets sick. An awful lot of people feel that they're treading water—that if they vanished in smoke, it wouldn't mean anything at all in this world. And that's a despairing and destructive feeling. It'll kill you.