Henry Miller Quotes

316 Sourced Quotes

For the artist to attach himself to his work, or identify himself with it, is suicidal.

Henry Miller
All my Calvaries were rosy crucifixions, pseudo-tragedies to keep the fires of hell burning brightly for the real sinners who are in danger of being forgotten.

Henry Miller
'Life', said Emerson, "consists in what a man is thinking all day." If that be so, then my life is nothing but a big intestine.

Henry Miller
The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal.

Henry Miller
I believe in saying the truth, coming out with it cold, shocking if necessary, not disguising it.

Henry Miller
The world is what it is and I am what I am.... This out there and this in me, all this, everything, the resultant of inexplicable forces. A Chaos whose order is beyond comprehension. Beyond human comprehension.

Henry Miller
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
After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you're not vitally interested in.

Henry Miller
If you can fall in love again and again if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical you've got it half licked.

Henry Miller
Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything - except his own nature.

Henry Miller
I wanted to die; I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for.

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

Henry Miller
The light of Greece opened my eyes, penetrated my pores, expanded my whole being.

Henry Miller
The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses, which are always thoroughly human, even if despicable.

Henry Miller
The poem is the dream made flesh, in a two-fold sense: as work of art, and as life, which is a work of art.

Henry Miller
To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each step, each gesture, killing and recreating, death always a step in advance. To spit on the past is not enough. To proclaim the future is not enough. One must act as if the past were dead and the future unrealizable.

Henry Miller
Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from that which has made it impossible for these to become manifest. In short, they are suffering from the silent shameful conspiracy (the more shameful since it is unacknowledged) which has bound them together as enemies of art and artists.

Henry Miller
Greece is the home of the gods; they may have died but their presence still makes itself felt. The gods were of human proportion: they were created out of the human spirit.

Henry Miller
The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues.You can't separate them. They're wedded.

Henry Miller
The Englishman, be it noted, seldom resorts to violence; when he is sufficiently goaded he simply opens up, like the oyster, and devours his adversary.

Henry Miller
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
The art of living is based on rhythm - on give & take, ebb & flow, light & dark, life & death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good & bad, right & wrong, yours & mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life,' metamorphosis.

Henry Miller
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
It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis.

Henry Miller
The more I wrote, the more I became a human being. The writing may have seemed monstrous (to some) for it was a violation, but I became a more human individual because of it. I was getting the poison out of my system.

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

Henry Miller
I don't know whether you've ever had a woman eat an apple while you were doing it. Well, you can imagine how that affects you.

Henry Miller
Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is. You congeal into a bundle of inanimate fear. You become the very soul of anesthesia. But there is no escaping him. It is your turn now...

Henry Miller
An artist earns the right to call himself a creator only when he admits to himself that he is but an instrument.

Henry Miller