Famous Quotes by Henry Miller
- Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the other lugs. He makes the German mistake... More
- And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in... More
- I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from... More
- The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his... More
- Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of... More
- Surrealism is merely the reflection of the death process. It is one of the manifestations of a... More
- Example moves the world more than doctrine. The great exemplars are the poets of action, and it... More
- What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their... More
- The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer,... More
- Civilization is drugs, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines and machine slaves, low... More
- Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to... More
- Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but... More
- All my good reading, you mught say, was done in the toilet.... There are passages in Ulysses... More
- Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning. More
- Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it... More
- He is a man of one idea: that life has a symbolic significance. Which is to say that life and art... More
- All the lies and evasions by which man has nourished himself—civilization, in a word—are the... More
- In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are... More
- The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely,... More
- Sin, guilt, neurosis—they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge. More
- The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not... More
- The City of New York is like an enormous citadel, a modern Carcassonne. Walking between the... More
- He’s the master of the nightmare. He’s the Gustave Doré of the world of Henry Ford and Co.,... More
- We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it it... More
- One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people... More
- Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing.... Taboos after all are... More
- The word “civilization” to my mind is coupled with death. When I use the word, I see... More
- The waking mind ... is the least serviceable in the arts. More
- One becomes aware in France, after having lived in America, that sex pervades the air. It’s... More
- It is true I swim in a perpetual sea of sex but the actual excursions are fairly limited. More
- It isn’t the oceans which cut us off from the world—it’s the American way of looking at... More
- The American white man (not to speak of the Indian, the Negro, the Mexican) hasn’t a ghost of a... More
- The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of... More
- Perhaps I am still very much of an American. That is to say, naïve, optimistic, gullible.... In... More
- Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders... More
- Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is... More
- History is the myth, the true myth, of man’s fall made manifest in time. More
- The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They... More
- Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to... More
- It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing... More
- The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses,... More
- The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the... More
- The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author... More
- One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar.... More
- I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth. More
- Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through... More
- Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more... More
- No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed... More
- America is essentially a woman’s country—why shouldn’t the leading novelists be women? More
- To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of... More
- Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant. More
- Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared... More
- The world has not to be put in order: the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves... More
- A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life.... More
- Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire. More
- You have for company the best companion you will ever have—the modest, defeated, plodding... More
- The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and... More
- The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his... More
- The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in... More
- Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad... More
- Tomorrow I will discover Sunset Boulevard. Eurhythmic dancing, ball-room dancing, tap dancing,... More
- The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a... More
- All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. More
- I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as... More
- Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues,... More
- America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a... More
- Topographically the country is magnificent—and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else... More
- A new world is not made simply by trying to forget the old. A new world is made with a new... More
- Never in my life have I met anyone who did not agree that Emerson is an inspiring writer. One may... More
- The life of a creator is not the only life nor perhaps the most interesting which a man leads.... More
- In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be... More
- The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference. More
- Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead... More
- It does me good to write a letter which is not a response to a demand, a gratuitous letter, so to... More
- Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own... More
- If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms. More
- New York has a trip-hammer vitality which drives you insane with restlessness, if you have no... More
- There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something... More
- Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement. More
- We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the... More
- What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature. More
- If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One’s... More
- We do not talk—we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of... More
- When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness.... More
- Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is.... More
- The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you... More
- A prisoner has no sex. He is God’s own private eunuch. More
- The loss of sex polarity is part and parcel of the larger disintegration, the reflex of the... More
- At bottom there is in Joyce a profound hatred for humanity—the scholar’s hatred. One realizes... More
- In expanding the field of knowledge, we but increase the horizon of ignorance. More
- The real leader has no need to lead—he is content to point the way. More
- Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact... More
- The American ideal is youth—handsome, empty youth. More
- Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines—these are of trifling import. All that... More
- Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life... More
- In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor. More
- What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or... More
- Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing... More
- I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long... More
- The world is the mirror of myself dying. More
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