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Henry Miller

109 quotes

“I am of the order whose purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is over.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Often, when following the trail which meanders over the hills, I pull myself up in an effort to encompass the glory and the grandeur which envelops the whole horizon. Often, when the clouds pile up in the north and the sea is churned with white caps, I say to myself: "This is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked out on from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was here in Big Sur that I first learned to say 'amen.'”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's nothing wrong with the world. What's wrong is our way of looking at it.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a situation gets so bad that no solution seems possible there is left only murder or suicide. Or both. These failing, one becomes a buffoon.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the literature of utter desolation there is always and only one symbol (which may be expressed mathematically as well as spiritually) about which everything turns: minus love. For life can be lived, and usually is lived, on the minus side rather than the plus. Men may strive forever, and hopelessly, once they have elected to rule love out. That high unfathomable ache of emptiness into which all creation might be poured and still it would be emptiness, this aching for God, as it has been called, what is it if not a description of the soul's loveless state?”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What I really hoped for, no doubt, was to come upon one of those lives which begin nowhere, which lead us through marshes and salt flats, trickling away, seemingly without plan, purpose or goal, and suddenly emerge, gushing like geysers, and never cease gushing, even in death.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The waking mind...is the least serviceable in the arts.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel that America is essentially against the artist, that the enemy of America is the artist, because he stands for individuality and creativeness, and that's un-American somehow.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The word 'civilization' to my mind is coupled with death. When I use the word, I see civilization as a crippling, thwarting thing, a stultifying thing. For me it was always so. I don't believe in the golden ages, you see. ... Civilization is the arteriosclerosis of culture.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. ... Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn't the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One becomes aware in France, after having lived in America, that sex pervades the air. It's there all around you, like a fluid.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The frantic desire to live, to live at any cost, is not a result of the life rhythm in us, but of the death rhythm.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I blush to think of our origins—our hands are steeped in blood and crime. And there is no letup to the slaughter and pillage.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be generous is to say Yes before the man even opens his mouth.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had to learn, as I soon did, that one must give up everything and not do anything else but write, that one must write and write and write.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every man is working out his destiny in his own way and nobody can be of any help except by being kind, generous, and patient.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truly great writer does not want to write: he wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Words, sentences, ideas, no matter how subtle or ingenious, the maddest flights of poetry, the most profound dreams, the most hallucinating visions, are but crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow to commemorate an event which is untransmissible.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The happiest peoples, it is said, are those which have no history. Those who have a history, those who have made history seem only to have emphasized through their accomplishments the eternality of struggle. These disappear too eventually, just as those who made no effort, who were content to merely live and enjoy.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The battle is endless. It had no beginning, nor will it know an end. We who babble and froth at the mouth have been at it since eternity.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps the artist is nothing more than the personification of this universal maladjustment, this universal disequilibrium.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole damned universe has to be taken apart, brick by brick, and reconstructed.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am against revolutions because they always involve a return to the status quo.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am glad to be a maggot in the corpse which is the world.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything remains unsettled forever, depend on it.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The artist who becomes thoroughly aware consequently ceases to be one.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Gnostics thought the planet Earth was a cosmic mistake. I too feel that way — I'm through with this Earth before I've even departed from it.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One day, during one of their sessions, Gurdjieff tells Peters to look out the window and describe what he sees. 'An oak tree' the child answers. 'And what do you see on the oak tree?' 'Acorns' Peters replies. 'How many of these acorns do you suppose will become trees?' Fritz Peters is stumped, ... 'Maybe five or six?' 'No' retorts Gurdjieff. 'Only one will become a tree, perhaps, none! Nature is always very giving, but it only gives possibility. It takes hard work and great effort to become a tree or a genuine man.'”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I venerate van Gogh. He was a remarkable human being, a man who knew about love. His work reflects a spirit filled with light, even though his life was a tragedy in many ways.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Vlaminck and Utrillo were very good friends, drinking buddies. One day they attend a funeral. They're walking behind the hearse in a procession, and they're having a great time conversing with one another. They are completely engrossed when suddenly one asks the other, 'Say, don't you smell something funny?' They look up and they're walking behind a garbage truck! They'd lost the hearse in the middle of their enthusiastic conversation.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Pygmies are one of the most cultured peoples on the face of the earth. They live a wonderful life, a life of purity. Not only are they busy and productive, they're happy and healthy as well. If we puny Americans had to live under their conditions, we'd perish in a day. Modern man has much to learn from the people he calls 'savages'. Before we are down to the last blade of grass it would be wise to study the life of the Pygmies. The secret of our own survival rests with them, the people who know how to make the most out of very little and find complete happiness with the bare essentials.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“More than anything the French have a profound knowledge of the ways of life. They possess a tolerance and an acceptance of the way things are. Problems are faced with intelligence, patience, and a sense of humanity. I have more respect for them than any other nationality on the face of the earth.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as Bach is concerned, I never came close to liking him...My favourite composer is Scriabin...[and] his Fifth sonata, in my mind, the greatest piece of music ever written.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wagner wrote an opera titled Tristan and Yseult and in it there is a theme called Love Death theme. It is so sensual, so sexual that he was criticized for having introduced sex into music. And that was quite a few years before the appearance of Elvis Presley!”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who doesn't respond to music, the man without music in his soul is not to be trusted. A man like that is cold and empty, empty to the core.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Through it all I learned the value of being humble to the dust, reduced to ashes. Everyone should experience that. Before you can recognize you're somebody, you have to know you're nobody...The butterfly was just a lowly worm in its beginning. The worm didn't live with the moment-to-moment expectation of sprouting wings and taking flight. He lived a useful and productive life, the life of a worm. And he had to die a worm in order to be born as an angel! The spinning of the cocoon is, in and of itself, remarkable. It is as wondrous as the emergence and first flight of the butterfly.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I've spoken many times about the Japanese woman. I've praised her again and again. But I have to tell you that I think the Japanese man is the worst. The women are such delicate creatures and they're treated abominably by the men. The Japanese men are pigs — even worse than American men.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, I'll take these pages and move on. Things are happening elsewhere. Things are always happening. It seems wherever I go there is drama. 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. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now — misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch, until there's no skin left. However, the effect upon me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I am crying for more and more disasters, for bigger calamities, grander failures. I want the whole world to be out of whack, I want every one to scratch himself to death.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. Paris is simply an artificial stage, a revolving stage that permits the spectator to glimpse all phases of the conflict. Of itself Paris initiates no dramas. They are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. Paris is the cradle of artificial births. Rocking here in the cradle each one slips back into his soil; one dreams back to Berlin, New York, Chicago, Vienna, Minsk,. Vienna is never more Vienna than Paris. Everything is raised to its apotheosis. The cradle gives up its babes and new ones take their place. You can real here on the walls Zola lived and Balzac and Dante and Strindberg and everybody who ever was anything. Everyone has lived here some time or other. Nobody dies here.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What an astounding thing is the voice! By what miracle is the hot magma of the earth transformed into that which we call speech? If out of clay such an abstract medium as words can be shaped what is to hinder us from leaving our bodies at will and taking up our abode on other planets or between the planets? What is to prevent us from rearranging all life, atomic, molecular, corporeal, stellar, diving? Who or what is powerful enough to eradicate this miraculous leaven which we bear within us like a seed and which, after we have embraced in our mind all the universe, is nothing more than a seed — since to say universe is as easy as to say seed, and we have yet to say greater things, things beyond saying, things limitless and inconceivable, things which no trick of language can encompass.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be free, as I then knew myself to be, is to realize that all conquest is vain, even the conquest of self, which is the last act of egotism. To be joyous is to carry the ego to its last summit and to deliver it triumphantly. To know peace is total: it is the moment after, when the surrenderer is complete, when there is no longer even the consciousness of surrender. Peace is at the centre and when it is attainded the voice issues forth in praise and benediction. Then the voice carries far and wide, to the outermost limits of the universe. Then it heals, because it brings light and the warmth of compassion.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source