Death of a Salesman Quotes

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

“Pop! I’m a dime a dozen, and so are you”

“I’m gonna show you and everybody else that Willy Loman did not die in vain. He had a good dream. It’s the only dream you can have - to come out number-one man. He fought it out here, and this is where I’m gonna win it for him.”

“I’ve got to get some seeds. I’ve got to get some seeds, right away. Nothing’s planted. I don’t have a thing in the ground.”

“I don’t know what the hell I’m workin’ for. Sometimes I sit in my apartment—all alone. And I think of the rent I’m paying. And it’s crazy. But then, it’s what I always wanted. My own apartment, a car, plenty of women, and still, goddamnit, I’m lonely.”

“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 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 anymore and you’re going to stop waiting for me to bring them home!”

“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.”

“There’s more people! That’s what’s ruining this country! The competition is maddening! Smell the stink from that apartment house! And the one on the other side…”

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

“Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You’ll never get out of the jungle that way.”

“Why must everybody conquer the world? You’re well liked and the boys love you and someday—why, old man Wagner told him just the other day that if he keeps it up he’ll be a member of the firm, didn’t he, Willy?”

“He’s liked, but he’s not well liked.”

“A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.”

“They don’t need me in New York. I’m the New England man. I’m vital in New England.”

“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.”

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

“You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away — a man is not a piece of fruit!”

“And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want. ’Cause what could be more satisfying than to be able to go, at the age of eighty-four, into twenty or thirty different cities, and pick up a phone, and be remembered and loved and helped by so many different people?”

“He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine . . . A salesman is got to dream, boy.”

“The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want.”