Quotes from Henry Miller

And again that big, bushy thing of hers worked its bloom and magic. It began to have an independent existence for me too. There was Germaine and there was that rose bush of hers.. I liked them separately and I liked them together.

There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something with which we are all so familiar that when a man appears who is without it we are at once enslaved by him.

You have to die a human being to be reborn an individual.

Artists never thrive in colonies.

No, we are never alone. But one has to live apart to know it for the truth.

And her delicacy offended. Who wants a delicate whore! Claude would even ask you to turn your face away when she squatted over the bidet. All wrong! A man, when he's burning up with passion, wants to see things; he wants to see everything, even how they make water.

This is all a figurative way of speaking about what is unmentionable. What is unmentionable is pure fuck and pure cunt; it must be mentioned only in de luxe editions, otherwise the world will fall apart. What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse. But fuck, the real thing, cunt, the real thing, seems to contain some unidentified element which is far more dangerous than nitroglycerine.

There are those of poor spirit and there are those of great spirit. None are without it but the flame flickers pretty low in some cases. The majority of people seem to be nothing but a little flickering flame. You know that when you match them against an individual who is all fire, all radiance. Those in whom the flame of the spirit runs high are extraordinary examples of human beings.

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.

Acts are demanded, suicidal acts perhaps, but acts fraught with meaning.

It is a duet, and like most duets moreover in that one listens attentively only for the signal which announces the advent of one's own voice.

Man is not at home in the universe, despite all the efforts of philosophers and metaphysicians to provide a soothing syrup. Thought is still a narcotic. The deepest question is why. And it is a forbidden one. The very asking is in the nature of cosmic sabotage. And the penalty is—the afflictions of Job.

Whoever, through too great love, which is monstrous after all, dies of his misery, is born again to know neither love nor hate, but to enjoy. And this joy of living, because it is unnaturally acquired, is a poison which eventually vitiates the whole world. Whatever is created beyond the normal limits of human suffering, acts as a boomerang and brings about destruction.

We are all alone here and we are dead . . . Our heroes have killed themselves, or are killing themselves.

He's like a hero come back from the war, a poor maimed bastard living out the reality of his dreams. Wherever he sits himself the chair collapses; whatever door he enters the room is empty: whatever he puts in his mouth leaves a bad taste. Everything is just the same as it was before; the elements are unchanged, the dream is no different than the reality. Only, between the time he went to sleep and the time he woke up, his body was stolen.

The sun is setting fast. The colors die. They shift from purple to dried blood, from nacre to bister, from cool dead grays to pigeon shit.

He falls on her lap and lies there quivering like a toothache

New York makes even a rich man feel his unimportance. New York is cold, glittering, malign. The buildings dominate. There is a sort of atomic frenzy to the activity going on; the more furious the pace, the more diminished the spirit.

Le seul chemin qui mène à la délivrance passe par la découverte et la reconnaissance du caractère unique de son identité.

C'est un monde fait pour des monomaniaques obsédés par l'idée de progrès... mais d'un faux progrès qui pue. C'est un monde encombré d'objets inutiles que, pour mieux les exploiter et les dégrader, on a enseigné aux homes et femmes à considérer comme utiles.

You see, to me it seems as though the artists, the scientists, the philosophers were grinding lenses. It's all a grand preparation for something that never comes off. Someday the lens is going to be perfect and then we're all going to see clearly, see what a staggering, beautiful world it is…

Remember that you're far back in the procession; remember that a whole army corps has laid siege to her, that she's been laid waste, plundered and pillaged.

Je commençais à lire, à trop lire. Je me tournais vers le dedans, je me refermais sur moi-même, comme font les fleurs, la nuit.

Ni una sola vez habían abierto la puerta que conduce hasta el alma; ni una sola vez se les ocurrió dar un salto a ciegas en la obscuridad.