Henry Miller Quotes About Books

Quotes about: Books

• A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.

  Henry Miller

  Inspirational, Lying, Book

  Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

• A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.

  Henry Miller

  Lying, Book, Shelves

  Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

• A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.

  Henry Miller

  Lying, Book, Mind

  Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

• All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet. There are passages in Ulysses which can be read only in the toilet - if one wants to extract the full flavor of their content.

  Henry Miller

  Funny, Book, Reading

  Henry Miller (2007). “Black Spring”, p.48, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Writing, Thinking

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

• I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Believe, Soul

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

• If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible, But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Reading, Rain

  Henry Miller (2012). “Plexus (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)”, p.32, HarperCollins UK

• This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will.

  Henry Miller

  Art, Book, Destiny

  Tropic of Cancer ch. 1 (1934)

• My understanding of the meaning of a book is that the book itself disappears from sight, that it is chewed alive, digested and incorporated into the system as flesh and blood which in turn creates new spirit and reshapes the world.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Sight, Blood

  Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

• Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Reading, Magic

  Henry Miller (1969). “Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents”, p.139, 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.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Reading, Hands

• She may be lying in bed reading a book, she may be making love with a prize fighter, or she may be running like mad through a field of stubble, one shoe one, one shoe off, a man named Corn Cob pursuing her hotly. Wherever she is I am standing in complete darkness; her absence blots me out.

  Henry Miller

  Running, Lying, Book

  Henry Miller (2007). “Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion I”, p.7, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

• It is now the fall of my second year in Paris. I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, i thought I was an artist. I no longer think about it. I am. There are no more books to be written, thank God.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Fall, Men

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

• The best stories I have heard were pointless, the best books those whose plot I can never remember, the best individuals those whom I never get anywhere with. Though it has been practised on me time and again I never cease to marvel how it happens that with certain individuals whom I know, within a few minutes after greeting them we are embarked on an endless voyage comparable in feeling and trajectory only to the deep middle dream which the practised dreamer slips into like a bone slips into its sockets

  Henry Miller

  Dream, Book, Feelings

  Henry Miller (1958). “The Colossus of Maroussi”, p.71, New Directions Publishing

• And the books you write. They're not you. They're not me sitting here, this Henry Miller. They belong to someone else. It's terrible. You can never rest.

  Henry Miller

  Book, Writing, Sitting

  "Henry Miller: The Last Days" by Barbara Kraft, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 17, 2013.

• A book is a part of life, a manifestation of life, just as much as a tree or a horse or a star. It obeys its own rhythms, its own laws, whether it be a novel, a play, or a diary. The deep, hidden rhythm of life is always there - that of the pulse, the heart beat.

  Henry Miller

  Horse, Stars, Reading

  Henry Miller (1961). “The Cosmological Eye”, p.273, New Directions Publishing

• A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will.

  Henry Miller

  Art, Book, Character

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

• There is only one thing which interests me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in books

  Henry Miller

  Book, Interest, One Thing

  Henry Miller, John Calder (1985). “A Henry Miller reader”, Riverrun Pr

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin