Quotes from Henry Miller

But there comes a time, even in the life of an idle genius, when he has to go to the window and vomit up the excess baggage.

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

If you elect to join the herd you are immune. To be accepted and appreciated you must nullify yourself, make yourself indistinguishable from the herd. You may dream, if you dream alike. But if you dream something different, you are not in America, of America American, but a Hottentot in Africa, or a Kalmuck, or a chimpanzee. The moment you have a different thought you cease to be an American. And the moment you become something different you find yourself in Alaska or Easter Island or Iceland.

The thinking that takes you nowhere gets you everywhere.

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. I not only think about food all day, but I dream about it at night. But I don't ask to go back to America, to be put in a double harness again, to work the treadmill. No, I prefer to be a poor man of Europe. God knows, I am poor enough; it only remains to be a man.

The poverty of language, which is to say the poverty of man's imagination or the poverty of his inner life, has created an ambivalence which is absolutely false.

Death was more like what we went through in the park: two people walking side by side in the mist, rubbing against trees and bushes, and not a word between them. It was something emptier than the name itself and yet right and peaceful, dignified, if you like.

But as long as we come out of wombs with arms and legs, as long as there are stars above us to drive us mad and grass under our feet to cushion the wonder in us, just so long will this body serve for all the tunes that we may whistle.

One can't get bored with sex. But one is bored with making such a tremendous issue about it.

Detroit can do in a week for the white man what the South couldn't do in a hundred years to the Negro.

Directly across the street the Ciné Combat offers its distinguished clientele Metropolis.

To taste it once is to taste it forever --- life or death. Whichever way the coin flips is right, so long as you hold no stakes.

Moralistlerin tutkusu olan, varl???n "iÄŸrenç" davran??lar?n? ortadan kald?rma çabas? yaln?zca saçma deÄŸil, ayn? zamanda boÅŸunad?r da. Bir insan, çirkin, "günah" düÅŸünce ve isteklerini, içgüdü ve itkilerini bast?rmay? baÅŸarabilir, ama bunun sonuçlar? y?k?ma yol açabilir. ErmiÅŸ olmakla katil olmak aras?ndaki s?n?r, k?l kadar incedir.

At bottom, I sensed in others a distrust, an uneasiness. An antagonism, which, because it was instinctive, was irremediable. I should have been a clown, it would have afforded me the widest range of expression. But I underestimated the profession.

Ä°ster kabul edilsin, ister edilmesin, sanatç?n?n kafas? sürekli olarak dünyay? yeniden yaratma, insan?n safl???n? yeniden yaratma düÅŸüncesiyle meÅŸguldür. Bunun ötesinde, insan?n safl???n? yaln?zca özgürlüÄŸünü kazanarak yeniden elde edebileceÄŸini bilir. ÖzgürlüÄŸün buradaki anlam? otomasyonun ölümüdür.

Ben kendimle yaÅŸamay? öÄŸrendim. Ve bunu da seviyorum.

El hombre que renace es siempre el mismo, cada vez más él mismo con cada renacimiento.

America is the very incarnation of doom. She will drag the whole world down to the bottomless pit. He

One must have the patience of radium buried beneath a Himalayan peak.

Everything American will disappear one day. More completely than that which was Greek, or Roman, or Egyptian. This is one of the ideas which pushed me outside the warm, comfortable bloodstream, where buffalos all, we once grazed in peace. An idea which has caused me infinite sorrow. For not to belong to something enduring is the last agony.

I've lived out my melancholy youth. I don't give a fuck any more what's behind me, or what's ahead of me. I'm healthy. Incurably healthy. No sorrows, no regrets. No past, no future. The present is enough for me. Day by day. Today! Le bel aujourd'hui!

Gold, he says, tends to become more and more invisible, a myth, and no more defalcations. Excellent! I am wondering what will happen to the world when we go off the gold standard in ideas, dress, morals, etc. The gold standard of love! Up to the present, my idea in collaborating with myself has been to get off the gold standard in literature.

La oportunidad más maravillosa que ofrece la vida es la de ser humano. Abarca todo el universo. Incluye el conocimiento de la muerte, del que ni siquiera Dios goza.

It doesn't exist, America. It's a name you give to an abstract idea. . . .