As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie.
Henry MillerDestiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it.
Henry MillerSurely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.
Henry MillerWhen you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness. There are no limits in either direction apparently.
Henry MillerIf you are well off and can afford to spend ten or twenty-five dollars a day to hire some patient soul to listen to your troubles you can be readjusted to the crazy scheme of things and spare yourself the humiliation of becoming a Christian Scientist. You can have your ego trimmed or removed, as you wish, just like a wart or bunion.
Henry MillerWhen 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.
Henry MillerWhen I think of New York I have a very different feeling. 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. A constant ferment, but it might just as well be going on in a test tube. Nobody knows what it's all about. Nobody directs the energy. Stupendous. Bizarre, Baffling. A tremendous reactive urge, but absolutely uncoordinated.
Henry MillerYour whole past is like a long sleep which would have been forgotten had there been no memory, but remembrance is there in the blood and the blood is like an ocean in which everything is washed away but that which is new and more substantial even than life - reality.
Henry MillerI had to learn to think, feel, and see in a totally new fashion, in an uneducated way, in my own way, which is the hardest thing in the world. I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink.
Henry MillerShe may be lying in bed reading a book, she may be making love with a prize fighter, or she may be running like mad through a field of stubble, one shoe one, one shoe off, a man named Corn Cob pursuing her hotly. Wherever she is I am standing in complete darkness; her absence blots me out.
Henry MillerThe 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 MillerHope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It's a sort of spiritual clap, I should say.
Henry MillerI think someday you're going to be a great writer," he said. "But" he added maliciously, "first you'll have to suffer a bit. I mean really suffer, because you don't know what the word means yet. You only think you've suffered. You've got to fall in love first.
Henry MillerPrayers are offered up daily - without charge... Refreshments are served when demanded.
Henry MillerIt is our destiny to live with the wrong as well as the right kind of citizens, and to learn from them, the wrong-minded ones, as much or more as from others. If we have not yet succeeded -after how many centuries?- in eliminating from life the elements which plague us perhaps we need to question life more closely. Perhaps our refusal to face reality is the only ill we suffer from, and all the rest but illusion and delusion. (p.26)
Henry MillerOne can see now how the idea of heaven takes hold of men's consciousness, how it gains ground even when all the props have been knocked from under it. There must be another world beside this swamp in which everything is dumped pell-mell. It's hard to imagine what it can be like, this heaven that men dream about.
Henry MillerThe 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 MillerThe world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure.
Henry MillerExample moves the world more than doctrine. The great exemplars are the poets of action, and it makes little difference whether they be forces for good or forces for evil.
Henry MillerBy choosing to live above the ordinary level we create extraordinary problems for ourselves.
Henry MillerA man of good will with a little effort and belief in his own powers can enjoy a deep, tranquil, rich life - provided he go his own way.... To live one's own life is still the best way of life, always was and always will be.
Henry MillerI haven't any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I'm neither for nor against. I'm a neutral.
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 MillerOften, when following the trail which meanders over the hills, I pull myself up in an effort to encompass the glory and the grandeur which envelops the whole horizon. Often, when the clouds pile up in the north and the sea is churned with white caps, I say to myself: "This is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked out on from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.
Henry MillerCertainly paradise, whatever, wherever it be, contains flaws. (Paradisical flaws, if you like.) If it did not, it would be incapable of drawing the hearts of men or angels.
Henry MillerFor the artist to attach himself to his work, or identify himself with it, is suicidal.
Henry MillerI believe in saying the truth, coming out with it cold, shocking if necessary, not disguising it.
Henry MillerWhat is an artist? He's a man who has antennae, who knows how to hook up to the currents which are in atmosphere, in the cosmos.
Henry MillerLife's wildest moment---she kneels on the sidewalk. Everything else she does is lies, lies.
Henry MillerOn the meridian of time, there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama.
Henry Miller