What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.
Henry Miller
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Henry Miller quotes
The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to ahve artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.
Actors die so loud.
An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.
Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.
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.
Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.
Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.
Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."
Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.
Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.
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.
I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.
I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots.
If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.
If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having.
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.
Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.
In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
Instead of asking - "How much damage will the work in question bring about?" why not ask - "How much good? How much joy?"
Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement.
Life is 440 horsepower in a 2-cylinder engine.
Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets.
Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
My books are the books that I am, the confused man, the negligent man, the reckless man, the lusty, obscene, boisterous, scrupulous, lying, diabolically truthful man that I am.
Nine-tenths of our sickness can be prevented by right thinking plus right hygiene - nine-tenths of it!
No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.
No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe.
No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes.
Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.
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.
One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.
One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.
Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation... the other eight are unimportant.
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
The City of New York is like an enormous citadel, a modern Carcassonne. Walking between the magnificent skyscrapers one feels the presence on the fringe of a howling, raging mob, a mob with empty bellies, a mob unshaven and in rags.
The concert is a polite form of self induced torture.
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.
The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.
The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.
The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.
The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.
The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts.
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.
The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.
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.
True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.
Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.
We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.
We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy.
We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets - we remember only.
What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.
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.
Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring...
When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.
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.
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