Quote 1
WILLY: Biff Loman is lost. In the greatest country in the world a young man with such—personal attractiveness, gets lost. And such a hard worker. There’s one thing about Biff— he’s not lazy.
LINDA: Never.
WILLY: [with pity and resolve]: I’ll see him in the morning; I’ll have a nice talk with him. I’ll get him a job selling. He could be big in no time. (Act 1)
Willy's reflections suggest complete faith in the notion that in America, anyone who works hard and is personally compelling is destined to succeed. Beyond that, they have a right to succeed. By the end of the play, however, it becomes apparent that that isn't necessarily true.
Quote 2
WILLY: 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… How can they whip cheese? (Act 1)
Willy insists that his family's lack of success is due to population growth and not his faulty vision of the American Dream. Do you think this is true? How much has increased competition made the American Dream harder to accomplish?
Quote 3
WILLY: You and Hap and I, and I’ll show you all the towns. America is full of beautiful towns and fine, upstanding people. And they know me, boys, they know me up and down New England. The finest people. 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. This summer, heh? (Act 1)
Willy's characterization of the American people as kind and virtuous to anyone who is personally attractive demonstrates his utter faith in his twisted version of the American Dream. Willy is a slave to the delusional idea that he is in fact the poster boy for that dream—that he has "made it."
Quote 4
WILLY: What’s the mystery? 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! (Act 1)
Willy's insistence that finding success is as easy as wanting it reveals total faith in the idea that he can get rich quick. It's interesting that his brother actually made his fast fortune in Africa rather than America. We wonder how this computes with Willy's faith in the American Dream.
Quote 5
WILLY: Now all you need is a golf club and you can go upstairs and go to sleep. [To Ben] Great athlete! Between him and his son Bernard they can’t hammer a nail. (Act 1)
Willy, like his sons, feels better able to compete in the physical sense than in the economic realm central to the American way. What's interesting is that this is one of the few things that Willy isn't delusional about. His boys are better at sports, and he is good at building things. Has Willy simply pursued the wrong American Dream for his entire life? Would he have been happier as a laborer rather than a salesman?
Quote 6
WILLY: That is a one million dollar idea.
LINDA: Marvelous!
BIFF: I’m in great shape as far as that’s concerned!
HAPPY: And the beauty of it is, Biff, it wouldn’t be like a business. We’d be out playin’ ball again…
BIFF [enthused]: Yeah, that’s…
WILLY: Million-dollar! (Act 1)
While Biff and Happy are interested in finding work that is tolerable, Willy is fixated on ensuring that the boys find a lucrative profession likely to lead them down the path to success and greatness. Is Willy so bad for wanting this? Are Biff and Happy so bad for wanting to be… happy?
Quote 7
LINDA: He’ll find his way.
WILLY: Sure. Certain men just don’t get started till later in life. Like Thomas Edison, I think. Or B.F. Goodrich. One of them was deaf. [He starts for the bedroom doorway.] I’ll put my money on Biff. (Act 1)
Willy clings to his hope that Biff will settle down and become a major business success despite the unlikelihood of such an event. This desperate hope is what eventually leads him to commit suicide by the end of the play. He goes to his death with the delusional idea that Biff will one day be a famous businessman.
Quote 8
WILLY: Don’t say? 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 any more.
HAPPY: Like Uncle Charley, heh?
WILLY: Bigger than Uncle Charley! Because Charley is not liked. He’s liked, but he’s not—well liked. (Act 1)
Amidst his preoccupation with financial survival, Willy insists he will make it big some day and have the home life that he wants. Almost more important to him than actual successful business deals is being liked. Over the course of the play, however, we learn that Willy isn't particularly well liked at all. This is just another one of his delusions.
Quote 9
WILLY: Like a young god. Hercules—something like that. And the sun, the sun all around him. Remember how he waved to me? Right up from the field with the representatives of three colleges standing by? And the buyers I brought, and the cheers when he came out—Loman, Loman, Loman! God Almighty, he’ll be great yet. A star like that, magnificent, can never really fade away. (Act 1)
Willy clings to memories of the distant past to find hope for the future. What's interesting is that we see and hear of these past events through Willy's distorted lens. There's really no telling if anything was ever as wonderful as he paints it.
Quote 10
LINDA: Biff was very changed this morning. His whole attitude seemed to be hopeful. He couldn’t wait to get down town to see Oliver.
WILLY: He’s heading for a change. There’s no question. There simply are certain men who take longer to get solidified. How did he dress? (Act 2)
Linda and Willy cling to even the slightest indication of change as definite proof of a better future to come. It's really sad that all their dream and hopes for themselves and their children have come down to this.
Quote 11
WILLY: You wait, kid, before it’s all over we’re gonna get a little place out in the country, and I’ll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens…
LINDA: You’ll do it yet, dear. (Act 2)
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Willy maintains that they will escape their current financial situation and create something new. We wonder, though, if Linda is as delusional as her husband. Does she really believe that there is a house in the country in their future?
Quote 12
WILLY: Gee whiz! That’s really somethin’. I’m gonna knock Howard for a loop, kid. I’ll get an advance and I’ll come home with a New York job. Goddammit, now I’m gonna do it!
LINDA: Oh, that’s the spirit Willy! (Act 2)
Willy experiences occasional moments of extreme optimism that contrast with similarly extreme moments of depression. The back and forth between these highs and lows is what eventually tears him apart.
Quote 13
LINDA: You’re doing well enough, Willy!
BEN [to Linda]: Enough for what, my dear?
LINDA [frightened of Ben and angry at him]: Don’t say those things to him! Enough to be happy right here, right now. [To Willy, while Ben laughs] Why must everybody conquer the world? You’re well liked and the boys love you and someday—[to Ben]—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? (Act 2)
Linda expresses concern that Willy's massive aspirations are getting the better of him. She seems afraid that if Willy latches on to his brother's big dreams of success, then she may never see her husband again.
Quote 14
WILLY: [the last to leave, turning to Charley]: I don’t think that was funny, Charley. This is the greatest day of his life.
CHARLEY: Willy, when are you going to grow up?
WILLY: Yeah, heh? When this game is over, you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your face. They’ll be calling him another Red Grange. Twenty-five thousand a year. (Act 2)
Willy's hopefulness that the game will turn out well for Biff is based on the belief that Biff has already won the game, performed flawlessly, and is headed for a professional football career. This kind of baseless optimism eventually destroys Willy and seems to seriously damage his sons.
Quote 15
BIFF [crying, broken]: Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens?
[. . .]
WILLY: Oh, Biff! [staring wildly] He cried! Cried to me. [He is chocking with his love, and now cries out his promise] That boy—that boy is going to be magnificent! (Act 2)
Despite Biff's admission that he is a failure, Willy convinces himself that Biff will still make it big. Willy follows this delusion to his death, killing himself in order to help his son. Does this death bring some sympathy for Willy? Does he die a hero of some sort? Or is it just the logical end to a life of deception?
Quote 16
HAPPY: What the hell!
WILLY: Tell me what happened!
Biff [to Happy]: I can’t talk to him!
[A single trumpet note jars the ear. The light of green leaves stains the house, which holds the air of night and a dream. Young Bernard enters and knocks on the door of the house.] (Act 2)
Willy is only able to cope with the reality the Biff lays before him by escaping entirely into his delusions. The increasing harshness of his life is causing him to sink deeper and deeper into his own dream world.
Quote 17
BIFF: Let’s talk quietly and get down to the facts, huh?
WILLY [as though Biff had been interrupting]: Well, what’s happened? It’s great news, Biff. Did he take you into his office or’d you talk in the waiting room?
BIFF: Well he came in, see, and—
WILLY [with a big smile]: What’d he say? Betcha he threw his arm around you.
BIFF: Well, he kinda—
WILLY: He’s a fine man. [To Happy] Very hard man to see, y’know.
HAPPY [agreeing]: Oh, I know.
WILLY [to Biff]: Is that where you had the drinks?
BIFF: Yeah, he gave me a couple of—no, no!
HAPPY [cutting in]: He told him my Florida idea. (Act 2)
Between Willy's ceaseless interjections and Happy's lies on his behalf, Biff begins to fall back into the family's cycle of deception. Before long, though, reality is bound to break through.
Quote 18
WILLY: Well, Bill Oliver—very big sporting-goods man—he wants Biff very badly. Called him in from the West, Long distance, carte blanche, special deliveries. Your friends have their own private tennis court?
BERNARD: You still with the old firm, Willy?
[…]
BERNARD: What is it Willy?
WILLY [small and alone]: What-what’s the secret?
BERNARD: What secret?
WILLY: How—how did you? Why didn’t he ever catch on?
BERNARD: I wouldn’t know that, Willy.
WILLY [confidentially, desperately]: You were his friend, his boyhood friend. There’s something I don’t understand about it. His life ended after that Ebbets Field game. From the age of seventeen nothing good ever happened to him. (Act 2)
To impress Bernard, Willy attempts to present Biff as a successful man. Bernard knows Willy and Biff too well, though. He doesn't really seem to buy any of Willy's deceptions.
Quote 19
WILLY: [the last to leave, turning to Charley]: I don’t think that was funny, Charley. This is the greatest day of his life.
CHARLEY: Willy, when are you going to grow up?
WILLY: Yeah, heh? When this game is over, you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your face. They’ll be calling him another Red Grange. Twenty-five thousand a year. (Act 2)
Willy's detachment from reality causes him to massively exaggerate the significance of Biff's high school football career. He feels the need to take any small success and blow it up into epic proportions.
Quote 20
WILLY: In 1928 I had a big year. I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week in commissions.
HOWARD: Now Willy, you never averaged—
WILLY: I averaged a hundred and seventy dollars a week in the year of 1928! (Act 2)
Willy has himself utterly convinced that he is incredible at his job, despite the obvious reality of his poor salesmanship. Howard doesn't seem to buy any of it, though. Willy's transparently deceitful nature may be part of what costs him his job in this scene.