Death of a Salesman Quotes

"A man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime." (54)

"A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man." (56)

"Either he's your father and you pay him that respect, or else you're not to come here." (55)

"His blue suit. He's so handsome in that suit. He could be a --anything in that suit." (72)

"Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. 'Willy Loman is here!' That's all they have to know, and I go right through." (33)

"Bernard can get the best marks in school, y' understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y' understand, you are going to be five time ahead of him." (33)

"Cause I get so lonely-- especially when business is bad and there's nobody to talk to." (38)

"Funny, y' know? After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years you end up worth more dead than alive." (98) 

"...he died the death of a salesman, in his green velvet slippers in the smoker of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford, going into Boston-- when he died, hundreds of salesmen and buyers were at the funeral." (81)

"I have such strange thoughts." (14)

 "I put thirty-four years into this firm...and now I can't pay my insurance."

"The street is lined with cars. There's not a breath of fresh air in the neighborhood. The grass don't grow anymore, you can't raise a carrot in the back yard." (17)

 "...they know me up and down New England...And when I bring you fellas up, there'll be open sesame for all of us, cause' one thing, boys: I have friends. I can park my car in any street in New England and the cops protect it like their own." (31)

"Work a lifetime to pay off a house. You finally own it, and there's nobody to live in it." (15)

"Because I know he's a fake and he doesn't like anybody around who knows." (58)

"I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw-- the sky." (132)

"I've always made a point of not wasting my life, and every time I come back here I know that all I've done is to waste my life." (22)

"Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!" (132)

"You've just seen a prince walk by. A fine, troubled prince. A hard-working, unappreciated prince." (114)

"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." (97)

"Willy, nobody's worth nothin' dead." (98)

"I've often thought how strange it was that I knew he'd given up his life. What happened in Boston, Willy?" (94)

 "Just because he printed University of Virginia on his sneakers doesn't mean they got to graduate him, Willy." (32)

"We had a fist fight. It lasted at least half an hour. Just the two of us, punching each other down the cellar, and crying right through it." (94)

Yeah, but I cover myself!" (60) 

Gee, you are selfcentered! Why so sad? You are the saddest, selfcenteredest soul I ever did see-saw." (116)

"I'll put you right through to the buyers." (39) 

"There is no time for false pride, Willy. You go to your sons and tell them that you're tired. You've got two great boys, haven't you?" (83)

"Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way." (49)

 "Why, boys, when I was seventeen I walked into the jungle, and when I was twenty-one I walked out. And by God I was rich." (48)