Henry Miller Quotes

It's good to be just plain happy, it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.

Nothing can be given or taken away; nothing has been added or subtracted; nothing increased or diminished. We stand on the same shore before the same mighty ocean. The ocean of love. There it is - in perpetuum. As much in a broken blossom, the sound of a waterfall, the swoop of a carrion bird as in the thunderous artillery of the prophet.
We move with eyes shut and ears stopped; we smash walls where doors are waiting to open to the touch; we grope for ladders, forgetting that we have wings; we pray as if God were deaf and blind, as if He were in a space. No wonder the angels in our midst are unrecognizable.
One day it will be pleasant to remember these things.

I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.

At the bottom of every frozen heart there is a drop or two of love — just enough to feed the birds.

It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another human being, not with the mind, nor even with the heart.

Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist.
To make living itself an art, that is the goal.

I'm a bit retarded, like most Americans.

People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused.

Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can't wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked.

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.

An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.

To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.

"1) Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2) Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."
3) Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4) Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5) When you can't create you can work.
6) Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7) Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8) Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9) Discard the Program when you feel like it — but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10) Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11) Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards."