Henry Miller Quotes

The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

The frantic desire to live, to live at any cost, is not a result of the life rhythm in us, but of the death rhythm.

Living with a whore — even the best whore in the world — isn't a bed of roses.

The artist who becomes thoroughly aware consequently ceases to be one.

We create our fate every day . . . most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.

Don't expect me to be sane anymore. Don't let's be sensible. It was a marriage at Louveciennes — you can't dispute it. I came away with pieces of you sticking to me; I am walking about, swimming, in an ocean of blood, your Andalusian blood, distilled and poisonous... I can't see how I can go on living away from you — these intermissions are death. How did it seem to you when Hugo came back? Was I still there? I can't picture you moving about with him as you did with me. Legs closed. Frailty. Sweet, treacherous acquiescence. Bird docility. You became a woman with me. I was almost terrified by it. You are not just thirty years old — you are a thousand years old.

Here I am back and still smouldering with passion, like wine smoking. Not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger.

The real leader has no need to lead—he is content to point the way.

I am against revolutions because they always involve a return to the status quo.

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.

I've spoken many times about the Japanese woman. I've praised her again and again. But I have to tell you that I think the Japanese man is the worst. The women are such delicate creatures and they're treated abominably by the men. The Japanese men are pigs - even worse than American men.

Words are loneliness.

Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.

The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it.

Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.