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Henry Miller Quotes - Page 6

All Quotes Acceptance Art Beauty Boredom Cancer Change Chaos Christ Consciousness Creation Creativity Crime Criticism Curiosity Death Destiny Dying Earth Eating Effort Ego Evil Falling In Love Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Funny Giving Giving Up Grace Gratitude Growth Happiness Hate Heart History Humanity Imagination Inspiration Inspirational Integrity Joy Life Literature Live Life Love Lying Music Nature Pain Passion Past Peace Perspective Philosophy Progress Purpose Reading Reality Running Silence Sin Singing Soul Spring Struggle Suffering Time Tragedy Travel Understanding Vision Waiting War Water Writing

It was only in my forties that I started feeling young.

It was only in my forties that I started feeling young.

Birthday, Feelings, Young

If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.

Work, Believe, Ambition

Henry Miller (2010). “The Colossus of Maroussi”, p.205, New Directions Publishing

To love! To surrender absolutely, to prostrate oneself before the divine image, to die a thousand imaginary deaths, to annihilate every trace of self, to find the whole universe embodied and enshrined in the living image of another! Adolescent, we say. Rot! This is the germ of the future life, the seed which we hide away, which we bury deep within us, which we smother and stifle and do our utmost to destroy as we advance from one experience to another and flutter and flounder and lose our way.

Self, Way, Germs

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.

Tree, Joy, Done

Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.22, New Directions Publishing

The enchanting, and sometimes terrifying, thing is that the world can be so many things to so many different souls. That it can be, and is, all these things at once and the same time.

Perspective, Soul, Different

Henry Miller (1957). “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money. Money, money everywhere and still not enough! And then no money, or a little money, or less money, or more money but money always money. and if you have money, or you don't have money, it is the money that counts, and money makes money, but what makes money make money?

Money, Night, Crowds

Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.

Reading, Magazines, Facts

Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-conditioned Nightmare”, p.109, New Directions Publishing

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.

Art, Opposites, Understanding

Henry Miller (1961). “The Cosmological Eye”, p.193, New Directions Publishing

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

Philosophy, Facts, Action

Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.93, New Directions Publishing

With this book in my hands, reading aloud to my friends, questioning them, explaining to them, I was made clearly to understand that I had no friends, that I was alone in the world. Because in not understanding the meaning of the words, neither I nor my friends, one thing became very clear and that was that there were ways of not understanding and that the difference between the non-understanding of one individual and the non-understanding of another created a world of terra firma even more solid than differences of understanding.

Book, Reading, Hands

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.

Happiness, Money, Determination

Henry Miller, Mary V. Dearborn (2007). “Crazy Cock”, p.8, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself.

Love, Real, Enemy

Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”, p.274, New Directions Publishing

The world is the mirror of myself dying.

Death, Mirrors, Dying

Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. To-day I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth!

Men, Humanity, Principles

Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur.

Faith, Believe, Miracle

Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-conditioned Nightmare”, p.169, New Directions Publishing

My world of human beings had perished. I was utterly alone in the world and for friends I had the streets, and the streets spoke to me in that sad, bitter language compounded of human misery, yearning, regret, failure, wasted effort

Regret, Effort, World

There's something perverse about women...they're all masochists at heart.

Heart, Tropic Of Cancer, Masochism

Henry Miller, Norman Mailer (1976). “Genius and lust: a journey through the major writings of Henry Miller”, Grove Press

Words are loneliness.

Loneliness

Henry Miller (1977). “Tropic of Cancer”

In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.

Men, Creation Of Man, Actors

Henry Miller (1978). “Quiet days in Clichy and The world of sex: two books”, Atlantic Monthly Press

Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown.

Night, Earth, Creation

Henry Miller (1977). “Tropic of Cancer”

Somewhere along the way one discovers that what one has to tell is not nearly so important as the telling itself.

Important, Way, Storytelling

Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

The American white man (not to speak of the Indian, the Negro, the Mexican) hasn't a ghost of a chance. If he has any talent he's doomed to have it crushed one way or another. The American way is to seduce a man by bribery and make a prostitute of him. Or else to ignore him, starve him into submission and make a hack of him.

Men, White Man, Mexican

Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”, p.156, New Directions Publishing

I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth.

Expression, Growth, Decay

Henry Miller (1964). “Henry Miller on Writing”, New Directions Publishing

I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it's painful gall-stones, it's gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul.

Running, Mirrors, Blood

When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears.

Running, Art, Emotional

Henry Miller (1961). “Tropic of Cancer”

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