Quotes from Henri Michaux

He who has rejected his demons badgers us to death with his angels

It is almost an intellectual tradition to pay heed to the insane. In my case those that I most respect are the morons.

You can love a woman. To admire her is hard. You are not dealing with something important.

It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.

A man who knows neither how to travel nor how to keep a journal has put together this travel journal. But at the moment of signing he is suddenly afraid. So he casts the first stone. Here.

The bird's delirium does not interest the trees.

One can paint with two colors, and draw with one. Three, or four at most, have for centuries been enough men.

He who doesn't know anger doesn't know anything. He doesn't know the immediate.

He who has rejected his demons badgers us to death with his angels.

It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.

The Surrealist supernatural is a bit predictable but given the choice between supernatural and anything else, I would have no hesitation. Long live supernatural!

There is not one self. There are not ten selves. There is no self. ME is only a position in equilibrium. (One among a thousand others, continually possible and always at the ready.) An average of "me's," a movement in the crowd. In the name of many, I sign this book.

En vérité, celui qui ne connaît pas la colère ne sait rien».

Qui cache son fou, meurt sans voix

The mere ambition to write a poem is enough to kill it.

Only learn with reservations. An entire life is not enough to unlearn what you naively, submissively, have allowed to be placed in your head---innocent one---without imagiging the consequences.

He who hides his madman dies voiceless.

I put an apple on my table. Then I put myself inside this apple. What tranquility!

Base yourself on what you feel, even when you alone feel it.

La fièvre fit plus d'animaux que les ovaires n'en firent jamais.

Tu peux être tranquille. Il reste du limpide en toi. En une seule vie tu n'as pas pu tout souiller.

Seul, Être à soi-même son pain, Et encore, il s'engrange qu'il dit, Et pète par toutes les fissures. En blocs, en lames, en jets et en cristal, Mais derrière le mur de ses paroles, C'est un grand sourd.

At the age of eight, I still dreamed of being granted plant status.

Reality always falls short of essence. Every child knows that.