Henry Miller Quotes - Page 8

Quotes about:

• I wanted to feel the blood running back into my veins, even at the cost of annihilation. I wanted to shake the stone and light out of my system. I wanted the dark fecundity of nature, the deep well of the womb, silence, or else the lapping of the black waters of death. I wanted to be that night which the remorseless eye illuminated, a night diapered with stars and trailing comets. To be of night so frighteningly silent, so utterly incomprehensible and eloquent at the same time. Never more to speak or to listen or to think.

  Henry Miller

  Running, Stars, Eye

  17 Copy quote

• Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.

  Henry Miller

  Men, Race, Enemy

  Tropic of Cancer (1934) p. 280

  7 Copy quote

• Art is only a means to life, the life more abundant. It merely points the way.

  Henry Miller

  Art, Mean, Way

  Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.24, New Directions Publishing

  62 Copy quote

• Writing, like life itself,
  is a voyage of discovery.

  Henry Miller

  Nature, Writing, Discovery

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

  7 Copy quote

• Life, as we all know, is conflict, and man, being part of life, is himself an expression of conflict. If he recognizes the fact and accepts it, he is apt, despite the conflict, to know peace and to enjoy it. But to arrive at this end, which is only a beginning (for we haven’t begun to live yet!), a man has got to learn the doctrine of acceptance, that is, of unconditional surrender, which is love.

  Henry Miller

  Acceptance, Men, Expression

  Henry Miller (1959). “The Henry Miller Reader”, p.254, New Directions Publishing

  5 Copy quote

• Topographically the country is magnificent - and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete. Nowhere have I encountered such a dull, monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its peak.

  Henry Miller

  Country, Divorce, Men

  8 Copy quote

• I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen.

  Henry Miller

  America, Looks, Literature

  Henry Miller (1970). “The Air-conditioned Nightmare”, p.117, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• On the meridian of time, there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama.

  Henry Miller

  Time, Drama, Creating

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

  9 Copy quote

• Keep your exclamation points under control!

  Henry Miller

  Exclamation Points, Emotion, Exclamation

  6 Copy quote

• The concert is a polite form of self induced torture.

  Henry Miller

  Self, Form, Concerts

  7 Copy quote

• Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.

  Henry Miller

  Thinking, Bridges, World

  Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

  8 Copy quote

• I thought, when I came upon her, that I was seizing hold of life... Instead I lost hold of life completely. I reached out for something to attach myself to - and I found nothing. But in reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left high and dry as I was, I nevertheless found something I had not looked for - myself.

  Henry Miller

  Effort, Dry, Quiet

  Henry Miller, Mary V. Dearborn (2007). “Crazy Cock”, p.17, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  6 Copy quote

• Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.

  Henry Miller

  Yield, Joy, Produce

  Henry Miller (1977). “Tropic of Cancer”

  11 Copy quote

• You have to write a million words before you find your voice as a writer.

  Henry Miller

  Writing, Voice, Millions

  7 Copy quote

• Perhaps I am still very much of an American. That is to say, naïve, optimistic, gullible. In the eyes of a European, what am I but an American to the core, an American who exposes his Americanism like a sore. Like it or not, I am a product of this land of plenty, a believer in superabundance, a believer in miracles.

  Henry Miller

  Optimistic, Eye, Land

  Henry Miller (1957). “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”, p.319, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• What I secretly longed for was to disentangle myself of all those lives which had woven themselves into the pattern of my own life and were making my destiny a part of theirs. To shake myself free of these accumulating experiences which were mine only by force of inertia required a violent effort. Now and then I lunged and tore at the net, but only to become more enmeshed. My liberation seemed to involve pain and suffering to those near and dear to me. Every move I made for my own private good brought about reproach and condemnation. I was a traitor a thousand times over.

  Henry Miller

  Pain, Moving, Destiny

  7 Copy quote

• All growth is a leap in the dark.

  Henry Miller

  Inspirational, Dark, Growth

  Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.90, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• It's the pleasure of picking up the brush and seeing what happens.

  Henry Miller

  Pleasure, Brushes, Happens

  Henry Miller (2016). “Henry Miller Interview 1”, p.3, Masters Masterworks

  7 Copy quote

• The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly; they underwrite it with their lives.

  Henry Miller

  Running, Believe, Greatness

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

  4 Copy quote

• Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the other lugs. He makes the German mistake of being tactless, that's all.

  Henry Miller

  Mistake, Opinion, Dictator

  7 Copy quote

• Example moves the world more than doctrine.

  Henry Miller

  Moving, Example, Doctrine

  Henry Miller (1961). “The Cosmological Eye”, p.183, New Directions Publishing

  16 Copy quote

• People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused.

  Henry Miller

  Blood, People, Skins

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

  9 Copy quote

• If I am against the condition of the world it is not because I am a moralist, it is because I want to laugh more. I don't say that God is one grand laugh: I say that you've got to laugh hard before you can get anywhere near God. My whole aim in life is to get near to God, that is, to get nearer to myself. That's why it doesn't matter to me what road I take. But music is very important. Music is a tonic for the pineal gland. Music isn't Bach or Beethoven; music is the can opener of the soul. It makes you terribly quiet inside, makes you aware that there's a roof to your being.

  Henry Miller

  Laughing, Soul, Important

  Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

  7 Copy quote

• Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.

  Henry Miller

  Reality, Swim, Frightened

  Henry Miller (1962). “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird”, p.44, New Directions Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• The poet speaks adequately only when he speaks somewhat wildly... not with intellect alone, but with intellect inebriated by nectar.

  Henry Miller

  Poetry, Speak, Nectar

  14 Copy quote

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