Top quotes by Henry Miller

Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang's feeble imagination. Votes: 30

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. Votes: 29

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself. Votes: 23

Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur. Votes: 20

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. Votes: 20

I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots. Votes: 19

Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring. Votes: 19

If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. Votes: 18

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. Votes: 15

Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves. Votes: 14

The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens. Votes: 12

Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning. Votes: 11

No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe. Votes: 10

The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary. Votes: 10

Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything. Votes: 10

Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing. Votes: 10

In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other. Votes: 9

I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth. Votes: 9

Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense. Votes: 8

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. Votes: 8

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. Votes: 7

Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets. Votes: 7

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance. Votes: 6

The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition. Votes: 5

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. Votes: 5

The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference. Votes: 5

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself. Votes: 4

Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire. Votes: 4

Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything except his own nature. Votes: 4

Example 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. Votes: 3

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. Votes: 0

Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?' Votes: 0

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one. Votes: 0

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood. Votes: 0

Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him. Votes: 0

And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words? Votes: 0

We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests. Votes: 0

What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature. Votes: 0

Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another person, not with the mind, not even with the heart. Votes: 0

The word in your mouth is anarchy. Votes: 0

Living apart and at peace with myself,I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with anothers way of life-so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands Off. Votes: 0

When a situation gets so bad that no solution seems possible there is left only murder and suicide, or both. These failing, one becomes a buffoon. Votes: 0

Out yonder they may curse, revile, and torture one another, defile all the human instincts, make a shambles of creation (if it were in their power), but here, no, here, it is unthinkable, here there is abiding peace, the peace of God, and the serene security created by a handful of good neighbors living at one with the creature world. Votes: 0

Build your cities proud and high. Lay your sewers. Span your rivers. Work feverishly. Sleep dreamlessly. Sing madly, like the bulbul. Underneath, below the deepest foundations, there lives another race of men. They are dark, sombre, passionate. They muscle into the bowels of the earth. They wait with a patience which is terrifying. They are the scavengers. They emerge when everything topples into dust." Votes: 0

When a desperate, hungry spirit appears and makes the guinea pigs squeal it is because he knows where to put the live wire of sex, because he knows that beneath the hard carapace of indifference there is concealed the ugly gash, the wound that never heals." Votes: 0

No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes." Votes: 0

I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous beasts, as though I were swimming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision." Votes: 0

There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy. Votes: 0

We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy. Votes: 0

Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is. You congeal into a bundle of inanimate fear. You become the very soul of anesthesia. But there is no escaping him. It is your turn now... Votes: 0

The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself. Votes: 0

The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. Votes: 0

All the men she's been with and now you, just you, and the barges going by, masts and hulls, the whole damned current of life flowing through you, through her, through all the guys behind you and after you, the flowers and the birds and the sun streaming in and the fragrance of it choking you, annihilating you. Votes: 0

When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness. There are no limits in either direction apparently. Votes: 0

It was here in Big Sur that I first learned to say 'amen.' Votes: 0

For a metaphysical treat stop at the Big Sur Inn, which is also a haven for stray cats and dogs. Life along the South Coast is just a bed of roses, with a few thorns and nettles interspersed. Votes: 0

Those who are truly decrepit, living corpses, so to speak, are the middle-aged, middle-class men and woman who are stuck in their comfortable grooves and imagine that the status quo will least forever or else are so frightened it won't, that they have retreated into their mental bomb shelters to wait it out. Votes: 0

The American white man (not to speak of the Indian, the Negro, the Mexican) hasn't a ghost of a chance. If he has any talent he's doomed to have it crushed one way or another. The American way is to seduce a man by bribery and make a prostitute of him. Or else to ignore him, starve him into submission and make a hack of him. Votes: 0

He saw that science had become as great a hoax as religion, that nationalism was a farce, patriotism a fraud, education a form of leprosy, and that morals were for cannibals Votes: 0

Hell is probably quite similar to most Paris bistros ... a bit overheated, somewhat too crowded, and a little too noisy for my tastes. The waiters will surely treat you rudely and the cashiers will always add a few extra francs to your bill but ... and this is the important part ... the food will be marvelous. Votes: 0

Chaos is the score upon which reality is written. Votes: 0

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum. Votes: 0

Civilization is drugs, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines and machine slaves, low wages, bad food, bad taste, prisons, reformatories, lunatic asylums, divorce, perversion, brutal sports, suicides, infanticide, cinema, quackery, demagogy, strikes, lockouts, revolutions, putsches, colonization, electric chairs, guillotines, sabotage, floods, famine, disease, gangsters, money barons, horse racing, fashion shows, poodle dogs, chow dogs, Siamese cats, condoms, peccaries, syphilis, gonorrhea, insanity, neuroses, etc., etc. Votes: 0

I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. Votes: 0

I feel that America is essentially against the artist, that the enemy of America is the artist, because he stands for individuality and creativeness, and that's un-American somehow. Votes: 0

Life is 440 horsepower in a 2-cylinder engine. Votes: 0

There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry. Votes: 0

Example moves the world more than doctrine. Votes: 0

We have been educated to such a fine - or dull - point that we are incapable of enjoying something new, something different, until we are first told what it's all about. We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. In short, the blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way. Votes: 0

It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd. Votes: 0

People used to envy me my inspiration. I hate inspiration. It takes you over completely. I could never wait until it passed and I got rid of it. Votes: 0

I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing. Votes: 0

One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life. Votes: 0

If you can fall in love again and again if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical you've got it half licked. Votes: 0

The wallpaper with which the men of science have covered the world of reality is falling to tatters. The grand whorehouse which they have made of life requires no decoration; it is essential that only the drains function adequately. Beauty, that feline beauty that has us by the balls in America, is finished. Votes: 0

Her fluency was marvelous. She would say things at random, intricate, flamelike, or slide off into a parenthetical limbo peppered with fireworks-- admirable linguistic feats which a practiced writer might struggle for hours to achieve. Votes: 0

We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets - we remember only. Votes: 0

The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon. Votes: 0

If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having. Votes: 0

What I really hoped for, no doubt, was to come upon one of those lives which begin nowhere, which lead us through marshes and salt flats, trickling away, seemingly without plan, purpose or goal, and suddenly emerge, gushing like geysers, and never cease gushing, even in death. Votes: 0

Giving and receiving are at bottom one thing, dependent on whether one lives open or closed. Living openly one becomes a medium, a transmitter; living thus, as a river, one experiences life to the full, flows along with the current of life, and dies in order to live again as an ocean. Votes: 0

This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will. Votes: 0

I struggled in the beginning. I said I was going to write the truth, so help me God. And I thought I was. I found I couldn't. Nobody can write the absolute truth. Votes: 0

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. Votes: 0

All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet. Votes: 0

All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet. There are passages in Ulysses which can be read only in the toilet - if one wants to extract the full flavor of their content. Votes: 0

Fame is an illusive thing - here today, gone tomorrow. The fickle, shallow mob raises its heroes to the pinnacle of approval today and hurls them into oblivion tomorrow at the slightest whim; cheers today, hisses tomorrow; utter forgetfulness in a few months. Votes: 0

The stabbing horror of life is not contained in calamities and disasters, because these things wake one up and one gets very familiar and intimate with them and finally they become tame again. No, it is more like being in a hotel room in Hoboken let us say, and just enough money in one's pocket for another meal. Votes: 0

I will never again go to people under false pretenses even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people. Votes: 0

What 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. Votes: 0

either you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. Votes: 0

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Votes: 0

Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane. Votes: 0

What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse. Votes: 0

I didn't have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let's say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing! Votes: 0

It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world - it's the American way of looking at things. Votes: 0

To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in. Votes: 0

No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes. Votes: 0

It does me good to write a letter which is not a response to a demand, a gratuitous letter, so to speak, which has accumulated in me like the waters of a reservoir. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

But it's just because the chances are all against you, just because there is so little hope, that life is sweet over here. Votes: 0

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Votes: 0

The 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. Votes: 0

To paint is to love again, and to love is to live life to the fullest. Votes: 0

Tomorrow you may bring about the destruction of your world. Tomorrow you may sing in Paradise above the smoking ruins of your world-cities. But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you - MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am. Votes: 0

An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness. Votes: 0

have you ever seen a genius out there looking for a job? it's the saddest thing in the world. no one will hire him. there is only one place where he is always welcome- at the bottom. Votes: 0

To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts. Votes: 0

New York! The white prisons, the sidewalks swarming with maggots, the breadlines, the opium joints that are built like palaces, the kikes that are there, the lepers, the thugs, and above all, the ennui, the monotony of faces, streets, legs, houses, skyscrapers, meals, posters, jobs, crimes, loves... A whole city erected over a hollow pit of nothingness. Meaningless. Absolute meaningless. Votes: 0

Topographically the country is magnificent - and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete. Nowhere have I encountered such a dull, monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its peak. Votes: 0

I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: The world of art is the only such realm. Votes: 0

Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm. Votes: 0

We live at the edge of the miraculous. Votes: 0

Sin, guilt, neurosis; they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Votes: 0

It is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. Paris is simply an artificial stage, a revolving stage that permits the spectator to glimpse all phases of the conflict. Of itself Paris initiates no dramas. They are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. Votes: 0

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. Votes: 0

Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously. Votes: 0

There are no "facts"- there is only the fact that man, every man everywhere in the world, is on his way to ordination. Some men take the long route and some take the short route. Every man is working out his own way and nobody can be of help except by being kind, generous, and patient. Votes: 0

Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. Votes: 0

Words, sentences, ideas, no matter how subtle or ingenious, the maddest flights of poetry, the most profound dreams, the most hallucinating visions, are but crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow to commemorate an event which is untransmissible. Votes: 0

When you come, please be so kind as to check your neuroses and psychoses at the gate... Fans and other obnoxious pests would do well to maintain silence. Votes: 0

Everyman, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. Votes: 0

Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there. Votes: 0

The vast difference between astrology and other sciences, if I may put it thus, is that astrology deals not with facts but with profundities. The solid ground on which the scientist pretends to rest gives way, in astrology, to imponderables. Votes: 0

All my Calvaries were rosy crucifixions, pseudo-tragedies to keep the fires of hell burning brightly for the real sinners who are in danger of being forgotten. Votes: 0

When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling into deep, black space. And this is worse than tears, deeper than regret or pain or sorrow, it is the abyss into which Satan was plunged. There is no climbing back, no ray of light, no sound of human voice or human touch of hand. Votes: 0

It was you, you who brought me the pardon. Pee on me, won't you. It would be like benediction. O, what a sleepwalker I have been! Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Up on the Brooklyn Bridge a man is standing in agony, waiting to jump, or waiting to write a poem, or waiting for the blood to leave his vessels because if he advances another foot the pain of his love will kill him. Votes: 0

In this chthonian world the only thing of importance is orthography and punctuation. It doesn't matter what the nature of the calamity is, only whether it is spelled right. Votes: 0

The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment. Votes: 0

Every day that we fail to live out the maximum of our potentialities we kill the Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ which is in us. Votes: 0

The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love. Votes: 0

It is with the soul that we grasp the essence of another human being, not with the mind, nor even with the heart. Votes: 0

The world around me is dissolving leaving here and there spots of time. The world is a cancer eating itself away. Votes: 0

I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable Votes: 0

Life's wildest moment---she kneels on the sidewalk. Everything else she does is lies, lies. Votes: 0

De wiegen der beschaving zijn de verpestende riolen van de wereld, het knekelhuis waarin de stinkende baarmoeders hun bloederige pakjes vlees en been toevertrouwen. Votes: 0

We have no need for genius - genius is dead. We have need for strong hands, for spirits who are willing to give up the ghost and put on flesh... Votes: 0

What's a fuck when what I want is love? Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Surely 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. Votes: 0

The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts. Votes: 0

The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order. Votes: 0

The world is a cancer eating itself away... I am think that when the great silence descends upon all and everywhere music will at last triumph. When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written. Votes: 0

Living with a whore--even the best whore in the world--isn't a bed of roses. Votes: 0

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking things. Votes: 0

The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive. Votes: 0

The practice of any art demands more than 'mere savoir faire'. One must not only be in love with what one does, one must also know how to make love. In love self is obliterated. Only the beloved counts. Votes: 0

I believe in saying the truth, coming out with it cold, shocking if necessary, not disguising it. Votes: 0

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern. Votes: 0

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life. Votes: 0

I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous beasts, as though I were swimming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision. Votes: 0

What are our conductors giving us year after year? Only fresh corpses. Over these beautifully embalmed sonatas, toccatas, symphonies and operas the public dance the jitterbug. Night and day without let the radio drowns us in a hog-wash of the most nauseating, sentimental ditties. From the churches comes the melancholy dirge of the dead Christ, a music which is no more sacred than a rotten turnip. Votes: 0

I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul. Votes: 0

One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses. Votes: 0

After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you're not vitally interested in. Votes: 0

The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. Votes: 0

I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen. Votes: 0

The dreamer whose dreams are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist an escapist, the man of vision a criminal. Votes: 0

Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. Votes: 0

Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path himself. Votes: 0

I wanted to die; I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms. Votes: 0

Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race. Votes: 0

The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order. Votes: 0

The concert is a polite form of self induced torture. Votes: 0

If I am against the condition of the world, it is not because I am a moralist - it is because I want to laugh more. Votes: 0

The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death. Votes: 0

Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness. Votes: 0

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act according to their beliefs. Votes: 0

When 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. Votes: 0

The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way. Votes: 0

The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love. Votes: 0

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them. Votes: 0

...the wise man knows that every experience is to be viewed as a blessing. Votes: 0

...when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous. Votes: 0

A book is a part of life, a manifestation of life, just as much as a tree or a horse or a star. It obeys its own rhythms, its own laws, whether it be a novel, a play, or a diary. The deep, hidden rhythm of life is always there - that of the pulse, the heart beat. Votes: 0

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold. Votes: 0

A 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. Votes: 0

A new world is not made simply by trying to forget the old. A new world is made with a new spirit, with new values. Our world may have begun that way, but today it is caricature. Our world is a world of things. What we dread most, in the face of the impending debacle, is that we shall be obliged to give up our gewgaws, our gadgets, all the little comforts that have made us so uncomfortable. We are not peaceful souls; we are smug, timid, queasy and quaky. Votes: 0

A world without hope, but no despair Votes: 0

A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will. Votes: 0

All growth is a leap in the dark. Votes: 0

All the lies and evasions by which man has nourished himself civilization, in a word is the fruits of the creative artist. It is the creative nature of man which has refused to let him lapse back into that unconscious unity with life which characterizes the animal world from which he made his escape. Votes: 0

America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still. Votes: 0

An artist earns the right to call himself a creator only when he admits to himself that he is but an instrument. Votes: 0

And for that one moment of freedom you have to listen to all that love crap... it drive me nuts sometimes... I want to kick them out immediately... I do now and then. But that doesn't keep them away. They like it, in fact. The less you notice them the more they chase after you. There's something perverse about women... they're all masochists at heart. Votes: 0

And the books you write. They're not you. They're not me sitting here, this Henry Miller. They belong to someone else. It's terrible. You can never rest. Votes: 0

And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean, when boredom seems the very stuff of life. Votes: 0

Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery. Votes: 0

Art is only a means to life, the life more abundant. It merely points the way. Votes: 0

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. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If a am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself. Votes: 0

As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance. Votes: 0

At Epidaurus, in the stillness, in the great peace that came over me, I heard the heart of the world beat. I know what the cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world. Votes: 0

At the bottom of every frozen heart there is a drop or two of love"•just enough to feed the birds. Votes: 0

Begin this moment, wherever you find yourself, and take no thought of the morrow. Look not to Russia, China, India, not to Washington, not to the adjoining county, city or state, but to your immediate surroundings. Forget Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and all the others. Do your part to the best of your ability, regardless of the consequences. Above all, do not wait for the next man to follow suit. Votes: 0

Better to separate than never to marry. Votes: 0

But you can't put fight into a man's guts if he hasn't any fight in him. There are some of us so cowardly that you can't ever make heroes of us, not even if you frighten us to death. We know too much, maybe. There are some of us who don't live in the moment, who live a little ahead, or a little behind. Votes: 0

By choosing to live above the ordinary level we create extraordinary problems for ourselves. Votes: 0

Certainly 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. Votes: 0

Cluster together like stars! Votes: 0

Day by day. No yesterdays and no tomorrows. The barometer never changes, the flag is always at half-mast. Votes: 0

Dedication is not what others expect of you, it is what you can give to others. Votes: 0

Develop an Interest in Life as you see it. Votes: 0

Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy. Votes: 0

Do not be duped by little duties. Do not be a chore man all your days. Votes: 0

Don't look for miracles. You yourself are the miracle. Votes: 0

Each man has his own way of being himself and of saying it so ultimately that he can't be denied. Votes: 0

Even if it doesn't work, there is something healthy and invigorating about direct action Votes: 0

Even if one's whole life were a mistake, there is always time to change. Votes: 0

Even the idiot may have a message for us Votes: 0

Every day the choice is presented to us, to live up to the spirit that is in us, or deny it. Votes: 0

Every time you come to the limit of what is demanded of you, you are faced with the same problem-to be yourself! Votes: 0

Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war. Votes: 0

Everyday we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read the lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Everyman, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. Votes: 0

Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is. Votes: 0

Everything hinges on how you look at things Votes: 0

Everything remains unsettled forever, depend on it Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

For a hundred years or more the world, our world, has been dying. And not one man, in these last hundred years or so, has been crazy enough to put a bomb up the asshole of creation and set it off. The world is rotting away, dying piecemeal. But it needs the coup de grace, it needs to be blown to smithereens. Not one of us is intact, and yet we have in us all the continents and the seas between the continents and the birds of the air. We are going to put it down "• the evolution of this world which has died but which has not been buried. Votes: 0

For one crime which is expiated in prison ten thousand are committed thoughtlessly by those who condemn. Votes: 0

For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured-disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui-in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable. Votes: 0

For the artist to attach himself to his work, or identify himself with it, is suicidal. Votes: 0

For the moment I can think of nothing"” except that I am a sentient being stabbed by the miracle of these waters that reflect a forgotten world. Votes: 0

For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter. Votes: 0

Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing. Votes: 0

France may one day exist no more, but the Dordogne will live on just as dreams live on and nourish the souls of men. Votes: 0

From the little reading I had done I had observed that the men who were most in life, who were molding life, who were life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing. They had no illusions about duty, or the perpetuation of their kith and kin, or the preservation of the State. They were interested in truth and in truth alone. They recognized only one kind of activity - creation. Votes: 0

Great God! What have I turned into? What right have you people to clutter up my life, steal my time, probe my soul, suckle my thoughts, have me for your companion, confidant, and information bureau? What do you take me for? Am I an entertainer on salary, required every evening to play an intellectual farce under your stupid noses? Am I a slave, bought and paid for, to crawl on my belly in front of you idlers and lay at your feet all that I do and all that I know? Votes: 0

Greece is the home of the gods; they may have died but their presence still makes itself felt. The gods were of human proportion: they were created out of the human spirit. Votes: 0

He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. Votes: 0

History is the myth, the true myth, of man's fall made manifest in time. Votes: 0

Hitler is no worse, nay better, in my opinion, than the other lugs. He makes the German mistake of being tactless, that's all. Votes: 0

Hope 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. Votes: 0

How different the new order would be if we could consult the veteran instead of the politician. Votes: 0

Human beings make a strange fauna and flora. From a distance they appear negligible; close up they are apt to appear ugly and malicious. More than anything they need to be surrounded with sufficient space"•space even more than time. Votes: 0

I am a free man"•and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone"•if He existed! Votes: 0

I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead. Votes: 0

I am of the order whose purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is over. Votes: 0

I am positively against all this crap which is carried on first in the name of this thing, then in the name of that. I believe only in what is active, immediate, and personal. Votes: 0

I am thinking of one woman and the rest is blotto. I say I am thinking of her, but the truth is I am dying a stellar death. I am lying there like a sick star waiting for the light to go out. Years ago I lay on this same bed and I waited and waited to be born. Nothing happened. Except that my mother, in her Lutheran rage, threw a bucket of water over me. My mother, poor imbecile that she was, thought I was lazy. She didn't know that I had gotten caught in the stellar drift, that I was being pulverized to a black extinction out there in the farthest rim of the universe. Votes: 0

I couldn't allow myself to think about her very long; if I had I would have jumped off the bridge. It's strange. I had become so reconciled to this life without her, and yet if I thought about her only for a minute it was enough to pierce the bone and marrow of my contentment and shove me back again into the agonizing gutter of my wretched past. Votes: 0

I didn't dare to think of anything then except the "facts." To get beneath the facts I would have had to be an artist, and one doesn't become an artist overnight. First you have to be crushed, to have your conflicting points of view annihilated. You have to be wiped out as a human being in order to be born again an individual. You have to be carbonized and mineralized in order to work upwards from the last common denominator of the self. You have to get beyond pity in order to feel from the very roots of your being. Votes: 0

I don't know whether you've ever had a woman eat an apple while you were doing it. Well, you can imagine how that affects you. Votes: 0

I felt free and chained at the same time - like one feels just before election, when all the crooks have been nominated and you are beseeched to vote for the right man. Votes: 0

I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself. Votes: 0

I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object. Votes: 0

I had learned to harness ignorance with presumption. I was ready to become an unacknowledged watercolorist. Votes: 0

I had no more need of God than He had of me, and if there were one, I often said to myself, I would meet Him calmly and spit in His face. Votes: 0

I 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. Votes: 0

I 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. The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life preservers around their necks, and more often than not it is the life preserver, which sinks them. Nobody can drown in the ocean of reality who voluntarily gives herself up to the experience. Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge. Votes: 0

I had to learn, as I soon did, that one must give up everything and not do anything else but write, that one must writer and write and write, even if everybody in the world advises you against it, even if nobody believes in you. Votes: 0

I have found God, but he is insufficient. Votes: 0

I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions. Votes: 0

I like the one about the little soulworms that fly out of the nest for the resurrection. Votes: 0

I read to be taken out of myself, to become ecstatic. Votes: 0

I soon found out you can't change the world. The best you can do is to learn to live with it. Votes: 0

I 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. Votes: 0

I thought, when I came upon her, that I was seizing hold of life... Instead I lost hold of life completely. I reached out for something to attach myself to - and I found nothing. But in reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left high and dry as I was, I nevertheless found something I had not looked for - myself. Votes: 0

I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it's painful gall-stones, it's gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul... Votes: 0

I took care of my wheel as one would look after a Rolls Royce. If it needed repairs I always brought it to the same shop on Myrtle Avenue run by a negro named Ed Perry. He handled the bike with kid gloves, you might say. He would always see to it that neither front nor back wheel wobbled. Often he would do a job for me without pay, because, as he put it, he never saw a man so in love with his bike as I was. Votes: 0

I used to think a bird couldn't fly if its wings got wet. Votes: 0

I want to undress you, vulgarize you a bit. Votes: 0

I wanted a metamorphosis, a change to fish, to leviathan, to destroyer. I wanted the earth to open up, to swallow everything in one engulfing yawn. I wanted to see the city buried fathoms deep in the bosom of the sea. I wanted to sit in a cave and read by candlelight. I wanted that eye extinguished so that I might have a chance to know my own body, my own desires. I wanted to be alone for a thousand years in order to reflect on what I had seen and heard - and in order to forget. Votes: 0

I wanted to feel the blood running back into my veins, even at the cost of annihilation. I wanted to shake the stone and light out of my system. I wanted the dark fecundity of nature, the deep well of the womb, silence, or else the lapping of the black waters of death. I wanted to be that night which the remorseless eye illuminated, a night diapered with stars and trailing comets. To be of night so frighteningly silent, so utterly incomprehensible and eloquent at the same time. Never more to speak or to listen or to think. Votes: 0

I'm an egotist, but I'm not selfish. There's a difference. I'm a neurotic, I guess. I can't stop thinking about myself. It isn't that I think myself so important... I simply can't think about anything else, that's all. If I could fall in love with a woman that might help some. But I can't find a woman who interests me. Votes: 0

I'd rather sit down and write a letter than call someone up. I hate the telephone. Votes: 0

If any man dared to translate all that is in his heart, to put down what is really his experience, what is truly his truth, I think then the world would go to smash, that it would be blown to smithereens and no god, no accident, no will could ever again assemble the pieces, the atoms, the indestructible elements that have gone to make up the world. Votes: 0

If I am against the condition of the world it is not because I am a moralist, it is because I want to laugh more. I don't say that God is one grand laugh: I say that you've got to laugh hard before you can get anywhere near God. My whole aim in life is to get near to God, that is, to get nearer to myself. That's why it doesn't matter to me what road I take. But music is very important. Music is a tonic for the pineal gland. Music isn't Bach or Beethoven; music is the can opener of the soul. It makes you terribly quiet inside, makes you aware that there's a roof to your being. Votes: 0

If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible, But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud. Votes: 0

If one believes, then miracles occur. Votes: 0

If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch. Votes: 0

If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without. Votes: 0

If 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. Votes: 0

I'm a bit retarded, like most Americans. Votes: 0

I'm delirious because I'm dying so fast. Votes: 0

Imagination is the voice of the daring. Votes: 0

In every man's heart there is anchored a little schooner. Votes: 0

In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor. Votes: 0

It is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. Votes: 0

It is now the fall of my second year in Paris. I was sent here for a reason I have not yet been able to fathom. I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, i thought I was an artist. I no longer think about it. I am. There are no more books to be written, thank God. Votes: 0

It 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) Votes: 0

It is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars and hypocrites. Votes: 0

It was only in my forties that I started feeling young. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

It's the pleasure of picking up the brush and seeing what happens. Votes: 0

Jump off. You are a protected individual. Do not fear. Votes: 0

Keep your exclamation points under control! Votes: 0

Keep your libraries, your penal institutions, your insaneasylums... give me beer.You think man needs rule, he needs beer. The world does not need morals, it needs beer... The souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the soul could make use of beer. Votes: 0

Leave out the parts that readers tend to skip. Votes: 0

Let me be, was all I wanted. Be what I am, no matter how I am. Votes: 0

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such Votes: 0

Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement. Votes: 0

Life, as we all know, is conflict, and man, being part of life, is himself an expression of conflict. If he recognizes the fact and accepts it, he is apt, despite the conflict, to know peace and to enjoy it. But to arrive at this end, which is only a beginning (for we haven't begun to live yet!), a man has got to learn the doctrine of acceptance, that is, of unconditional surrender, which is love. Votes: 0

'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. Votes: 0

Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything - except his own nature. Votes: 0

Man, as man, has never realized himself. The greater part of him, his potential being, has always been submerged. What is history if not the endless story of his repeated failures? Votes: 0

Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from that which has made it impossible for these to become manifest. In short, they are suffering from the silent shameful conspiracy (the more shameful since it is unacknowledged) which has bound them together as enemies of art and artists. Votes: 0

Music is the can-opener of the soul. Votes: 0

My hunger and curiosity drive me forward in all directions at once. Votes: 0

My one thought is to get out of New York, to experience something genuinely American. Votes: 0

My understanding of the meaning of a book is that the book itself disappears from sight, that it is chewed alive, digested and incorporated into the system as flesh and blood which in turn creates new spirit and reshapes the world. Votes: 0

My world of human beings had perished. I was utterly alone in the world and for friends I had the streets, and the streets spoke to me in that sad, bitter language compounded of human misery, yearning, regret, failure, wasted effort Votes: 0

New York has a trip-hammer vitality which drives you insane with restlessness if you have no inner stabilizer. Votes: 0

Next to love friendship, in my opinion, is the most valuable thing life has to offer. Votes: 0

No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in. Votes: 0

No, there's fifteen francs somewhere, which nobody gives a damn about anymore and which nobody is going to get in the end anyhow, but the fifteen francs is like the primal cause of things and rather than listen to one's own voice, rather than walk out on the primal cause, one surrenders to the situation, one goes on butchering and butchering and the more cowardly one feels the more heroically does he behave, until a day when the bottom drops out and suddenly all the guns are silenced and the stretcher-bearers pick up the maimed and bleeding heroes and pin medals on their chest. Votes: 0

Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk. Votes: 0

Of course you don't die. Nobody dies. Death doesn't exist. You only reach a new level of vision, a new realm of consciousness, a new unknown world. Votes: 0

Often, 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. Votes: 0

On the meridian of time, there is no injustice: there is only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama. Votes: 0

Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but I see now that it was meant to destroy me. To-day I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity - I belong to the earth! Votes: 0

Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos. Votes: 0

One 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. Votes: 0

One thing is certain, that when you die and are resurrected you belong to the earth and whatever is of the earth is yours inalienably. You become an anomaly of nature, a being without shadow; you will never die again but only pass away like the phenomena about you. Votes: 0

Over there you think of nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it's different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you become something or somebody it is an accident, a miracle. Votes: 0

Paint what you like and die happy Votes: 0

Part of the act of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere. But don't look for them in the wrong places. Votes: 0

Perhaps I am still very much of an American. That is to say, naïve, optimistic, gullible. In the eyes of a European, what am I but an American to the core, an American who exposes his Americanism like a sore. Like it or not, I am a product of this land of plenty, a believer in superabundance, a believer in miracles. Votes: 0

Perhaps I have not lined his portrait too clearly. But if he exists, if only for the reason that I have imagined him to be. He came from the blue and returns to the blue. He has not perished, he is not lost. Neither will he be forgotten. Votes: 0

Prayers are offered up daily - without charge... Refreshments are served when demanded. Votes: 0

Real love is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects, never demands. It replenishes, by grace of restoring unlimited circulation. It burns, because it knows the true meaning of sacrifice. It is life illuminated. Votes: 0

Reality is not protected or defended by laws, proclamations, ukases, cannons and armadas. Reality is that which is sprouting all the time out of death and disintegration. Votes: 0

Remorse is impotence; it will sin again. Only repentance is strong - it can end everything. Votes: 0

Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one. Votes: 0

Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation... The other eight are unimportant. Votes: 0

She 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. Votes: 0

She rises up out of a sea of faces and embraces me, embraces me passionately--- a thousand eyes, noses, fingers, legs, bottles, windows, purses, saucers all glaring at us an we in each other's arm oblivious. I sit down beside her and she talks--- a flood of talk. Wild consumptive notes of hysteria, perversion, leprosy. I hear not a word because she is beautiful and I love her and now I am happy and willing to die. Votes: 0

Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song. Votes: 0

Somewhere along the way one discovers that what one has to tell is not nearly so important as the telling itself. Votes: 0

Surrealism is merely the reflection of the death process. It is one of the manifestations of a life becoming extinct, a virus which quickens the inevitable end. Votes: 0

That we cannot rise equal to situations when we are in them "” that is the tragedy of life. Votes: 0

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life. Votes: 0

The best stories I have heard were pointless, the best books those whose plot I can never remember, the best individuals those whom I never get anywhere with. Though it has been practised on me time and again I never cease to marvel how it happens that with certain individuals whom I know, within a few minutes after greeting them we are embarked on an endless voyage comparable in feeling and trajectory only to the deep middle dream which the practised dreamer slips into like a bone slips into its sockets Votes: 0

The best technique is none at all. Votes: 0

The blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way. Votes: 0

The cancer of time is eating us away Votes: 0

The city grows like a cancer; I must grow like a sun. The city eats deeper and deeper into the red; it is an insatiable white louse which must die eventually of inanition. I am going to starve the white louse which is eating me up. I am going to die as a city in order to become again a man. Therefore I close my ears, my eyes, my mouth. Votes: 0

The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph. Votes: 0

The City of New York is like an enormous citadel, a modern Carcassonne. Walking between the magnificent skyscrapers one feels the presence on the fringe of a howling, raging mob, a mob with empty bellies, a mob unshaven and in rags. Votes: 0

The cradles of civilization are the putrid sinks of the world. Votes: 0

The earth is not a lair, neither is it a prison. The earth is a Paradise, the only one we'll ever know. We will realize it the moment we open our eyes. We don't have to make it a Paradise-it is one. We have only to make ourselves fit to inhabit it. The man with the gun, the man with murder in his heart, cannot possibly recognize Paradise even when he is shown it. Votes: 0

The enchanting, and sometimes terrifying, thing is that the world can be so many things to so many different souls. That it can be, and is, all these things at once and the same time. Votes: 0

The Englishman, be it noted, seldom resorts to violence; when he is sufficiently goaded he simply opens up, like the oyster, and devours his adversary. Votes: 0

The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing. Votes: 0

The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses, which are always thoroughly human, even if despicable. Votes: 0

The full and joyful acceptance of the worst in oneself may be the only sure way of transforming it. Votes: 0

The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it. Votes: 0

The history of the world is the history of the privileged few. Votes: 0

The imperfections of a man, his frailties, his faults, are just as important as his virtues.You can't separate them. They're wedded. Votes: 0

The learning we received only tended to obscure our vision. From the day we went to school we learned nothing; on the contrary, we were made obtuse, we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions. Votes: 0

The light of Greece opened my eyes, penetrated my pores, expanded my whole being. Votes: 0

The loss of sex polarity is part and parcel of the larger disintegration, the reflex of the soul's death, and coincident with the disappearance of great men, great deeds, great causes, great wars, etc. Votes: 0

The man who is intoxicated with life does not pass judgment, does not seek to come to a conclusion, does not impose his message on the world. Votes: 0

The moment one is on the side of life; peace and security drop out of consciousness. The only peace, the only security, is in fulfillment. Votes: 0

The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses. Votes: 0

The more I wrote, the more I became a human being. The writing may have seemed monstrous (to some) for it was a violation, but I became a more human individual because of it. I was getting the poison out of my system. Votes: 0

The most wonderful opportunity which life offers is to be human. Votes: 0

The only difference between the Adamic man and the man of today is that the one was born to Paradise and the other has to create it. Votes: 0

The only law which is really lived up to wholeheartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity. Votes: 0

The only peace, the only security, is in fulfillment. Votes: 0

The piano bar is the gateway to the halls of masturbation. Votes: 0

The poem is the dream made flesh, in a two-fold sense: as work of art, and as life, which is a work of art. Votes: 0

The poet speaks adequately only when he speaks somewhat wildly... not with intellect alone, but with intellect inebriated by nectar. Votes: 0

The purpose of life is to remember. Votes: 0

The smile was so painfully swift and fleeting that it was like the flash of a knife. Votes: 0

The sordid qualities imputed to the enemy are always those which we recognize as our own and therefore rise to slay, because only through projection do we realize the enormity and horror of them. Votes: 0

The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. Votes: 0

The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you. Votes: 0

The truly great writer does not want to write: he wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination. The first quivering word he puts to paper is the word of the wounded angel: pain. Votes: 0

The word civilization to my mind is coupled with death. When I use the word, I see civilization as a crippling, thwarting thing, a stultifying thing. For me it was always so. I don't believe in the golden ages, you see... civilization is the arteriosclerosis of culture. Votes: 0

The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it. Votes: 0

The world dies over and over again, but the skeleton always gets up and walks. Votes: 0

The world is the mirror of myself dying. Votes: 0

The world is two thirds spaghetti and meatballs, one third syphilitic chancre. Votes: 0

The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly; they underwrite it with their lives. Votes: 0

The world itself is pregnant with failure, is the perfect manifestation of imperfection, of the consciousness of failure. Votes: 0

There are lone figures armed only with ideas, sometimes with just one idea, who blast away whole epochs in which we are enwrapped like mummies. Some are powerful enough to resurrect the dead. Some steal on us unawares and put a spell over us which it takes centuries to throw off. Some put a curse on us, for our st idity and inertia, and then it seems as if God himself were unable to lift it. Votes: 0

There are moments when the elixir of life rises to such over−brimming splendor that the soul spills over. In the seraphic smile of the Madonnas the soul is seen to flood the psyche. The moon of the face becomes full; the equation is perfect. A minute, a half−minute, a second later, the miracle has passed. Something intangible , something inexplicable, was given out-and received. Votes: 0

There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature. Votes: 0

There is nothing in itself which is wrong or evil not even murder. Votes: 0

There is only one thing which interests me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in books Votes: 0

There is something else to be said about this immediate, spontaneous way of working, and that is this: in such moments, one is playing at the game of creation. Votes: 0

There was another thing I heartily disbelieved in - work. Work, it seemed to me even at the threshold of life, is an activity reserved for the dullard. It is the very opposite of creation, which is play"¦ The part of me which was given up to work, which enabled my wife and child to live in the manner which they unthinkingly demanded, this part of me which kept the wheel turning - a completely fatuous, ego-centric notion! - was the least part of me. I gave nothing to the world in fulfilling the function of breadwinner; the world exacted its tribute of me, that was all. Votes: 0

There will be more calamities, more death, more despair. Not the slightest indication of a change anywhere. The cancer of our time is eating us away. Our heroes have killed themselves, or are killing themselves. Votes: 0

There's nothing wrong with the world. What's wrong is our way of looking at it. Votes: 0

There's something perverse about women...they're all masochists at heart. Votes: 0

They never opened the door which leads to the soul. Votes: 0

Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep. We don't know how to let go. We're like a Jack-in-the-box perched on top of a spring and the more we struggle the harder it is to get back in the box. Votes: 0

Think only what is right there, what is right under your nose to do. It's such a simple thing - that's why people can't do it. Votes: 0

Those interested in celestial navigation are advised to first obtain a rudimentary knowledge of integral calculus, phlebotomy, astral physics and related subjects. The use of liquor is strictly forbidden on interplanetary flights. Votes: 0

Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown... Votes: 0

To be cured, we must rise from our graves and throw off the cerements of the dead. Nobody can do it for another - it is a private affair which is best done collectively. We must die as egos and be born again in the swarm, not separated and self-hypnotized, but individual and related. Votes: 0

To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth"”I count that something of a miracle. Votes: 0

To imagine a new world is to live it daily, each thought, each glance, each step, each gesture, killing and recreating, death always a step in advance. To spit on the past is not enough. To proclaim the future is not enough. One must act as if the past were dead and the future unrealizable. Votes: 0

To know Paris is to know a great deal. Votes: 0

To love! To surrender absolutely, to prostrate oneself before the divine image, to die a thousand imaginary deaths, to annihilate every trace of self, to find the whole universe embodied and enshrined in the living image of another! Adolescent, we say. Rot! This is the germ of the future life, the seed which we hide away, which we bury deep within us, which we smother and stifle and do our utmost to destroy as we advance from one experience to another and flutter and flounder and lose our way. Votes: 0

To make living itself an art, that is the goal. Votes: 0

To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing. Votes: 0

To the man whose senses are alive and alert there is not even the need to stir from one's threshold. Votes: 0

To walk in money through the night crowd, protected by money, lulled by money, dulled by money, the crowd itself a money, the breath money, no least single object anywhere that is not money. Money, money everywhere and still not enough! And then no money, or a little money, or less money, or more money but money always money. and if you have money, or you don't have money, it is the money that counts, and money makes money, but what makes money make money? Votes: 0

Understanding is not a piercing of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, in it, through and by it. Votes: 0

Until he [man] has become fully human, until he learns to conduct himself as a member of the earth, he will continue to create gods who will destroy him. The tragedy of Greece lies not in the destruction of a great culture but in the abortion of a great vision. Votes: 0

Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs. Votes: 0

Until we lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves. Votes: 0

Voyages are accomplished inwardly. Votes: 0

We are all guilty of crime the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power. What those powers that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine. That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything. Imagination is the voice of daring. Votes: 0

We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there. Votes: 0

We are dancing in the hollow of nothingness. We are one flesh, but separated like stars. Votes: 0

We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown. Votes: 0

We create our fate every day . . . most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior. Votes: 0

We create our fate everyday Votes: 0

We don't trust our five senses; we rely on our critics and educators, all of whom are failures in the realm of creation. Votes: 0

We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we'd have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong. Votes: 0

We must be holy without holiness. We must be whole, complete. That's being holy. Any other kind of holiness is false, a snare, and a delusion. Votes: 0

We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow... Votes: 0

We must not just be in the world and above the world, but also of the world. To love it for what it is... is the only task. Avoid it and you are lost. Lose yourself in it, and you are free. Votes: 0

We should not stop to reflect, compare, analyze, possess, but flow on and through, endlessly, like music. Votes: 0

We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate. Votes: 0

We're creators by permission, by grace as it were. No one creates alone, of and by himself. An artist is an instrument that registers something already existent, something which belongs to the whole world, and which, if he is an artist, he is compelled to give back to the world. Votes: 0

Were there a Christian so faithful to his God as I was to her we would all be Jesus Christ today. Votes: 0

What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it? Votes: 0

What have we to offer the world beside the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment? Votes: 0

What I secretly longed for was to disentangle myself of all those lives which had woven themselves into the pattern of my own life and were making my destiny a part of theirs. To shake myself free of these accumulating experiences which were mine only by force of inertia required a violent effort. Now and then I lunged and tore at the net, but only to become more enmeshed. My liberation seemed to involve pain and suffering to those near and dear to me. Every move I made for my own private good brought about reproach and condemnation. I was a traitor a thousand times over. Votes: 0

What I want is to open up. I want to know what's inside me. I want everybody to open up. I'm like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin-- to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I'm sure of it. Votes: 0

What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Votes: 0

Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed. Votes: 0

When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears. Votes: 0

When 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. Votes: 0

When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written. Votes: 0

When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise. Votes: 0

When you can't create you can work Votes: 0

When you meet the man [Brassai] you see at once that he is equipped with no ordinary eyes. And the sharpness of vision and depth of insight are revealed in Brassai's lifelong photographic exploration of Paris - its people, places, and things. Votes: 0

When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it, or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance. . . . The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with one's whole being, is that you alone control nothing. . . . Votes: 0

When you travel often, you will be addicted to it forever. Votes: 0

Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. 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. Votes: 0

Who but the artist has the power to open man up, to set free the imagination? The others - priest, teacher, saint, statesman, warrior - hold us to the path of history. They keep us chained to the rock, that the vultures may eat out our hearts. It is the artist who has the courage to go against the crowd; he is the unrecognized "hero of our time" - and of all time. Votes: 0

Who hates the Jews more than the Jew? Votes: 0

Who wants to be a hundred? What's the point of it? A short life and a merry one is far better than a long one sustained by fear, caution, and perpetual medical surveillance. Votes: 0

Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal. Votes: 0

Why change the world? Change worlds! Votes: 0

With this book in my hands, reading aloud to my friends, questioning them, explaining to them, I was made clearly to understand that I had no friends, that I was alone in the world. Because in not understanding the meaning of the words, neither I nor my friends, one thing became very clear and that was that there were ways of not understanding and that the difference between the non-understanding of one individual and the non-understanding of another created a world of terra firma even more solid than differences of understanding. Votes: 0

Without a Coca-Cola life is unthinkable. Votes: 0

Words are loneliness. Votes: 0

Work on one thing at a time until finished. Votes: 0

Writing is its own reward. Votes: 0

You are the only woman who has a sense of gaiety, a wise tolerance - no more, you seem to urge me to betray you. I love you for that. [...] I don't know what to expect of you, but it is something in the way of a miracle. I am going to demand everything of you - even the impossible, because you encourage it. You are really strong. I even like your deceit, your treachery. It seems aristocratic to me. Votes: 0

You can look at things all your life and not see them really. This "˜seeing' is, in a way, a "˜not seeing,' if you follow me. It is more of a search for something, in which, being blindfolded, you develop the tactile, the olfactory, the auditory senses "”and thus see for the first time. Votes: 0

You can travel fifty thousand miles in America without once tasting a piece of good bread. Votes: 0

You have to write a million words before you find your voice as a writer. Votes: 0

You make me tremendously happy to hold me undivided - to let me be the artist, as it were, and yet not forgo the man, the animal, the hungry, insatiable lover. No woman has ever granted me all the privileges I need - and you, why you sing out so blithely, so boldly, with a laugh even - yes, you invite me to go ahead, be myself, benture anything. I adore you for that. That is where you are truly regal, a woman extraordinary. What a woman you are! I laugh to myself now when I think of you. I have no fear of your femaleness. Votes: 0

You must be life for me to the very end," so he writes. "That is the only way in which to sustain my idea of you. Because you have gotten, as you see, tied up with something so vital to me, I do not think I shall ever shake you off. Nor do I wish to. I want you to live more vitally every day, as I am dead. That is why, when I speak of you to others, I am just a bit ashamed. It's hard to talk of one's self so intimately Votes: 0

You start with the sublime and end up in an alley jerking away for dear life. Votes: 0

Your nearness is the nearness of planets. I am the void between you. If I withdraw there will be no void for you to swim in. Votes: 0

Your 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. Votes: 0

Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. Votes: 0

Every man is working out his destiny in his own way and nobody can be of any help except by being kind, generous, and patient. Votes: 0

Writing, like life itself, Votes: 0

It is almost banal to say so yet it needs to be stressed continually: all is creation, all is change, all is flux, all is metamorphosis. Votes: 0

The life of a creator is not the only life nor perhaps the most interesting which a man leads. There is a time for play and a time for work, a time for creation and a time for lying fallow. And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean-when boredom seems the very stuff of life. Votes: 0

I haven't any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I'm neither for nor against. I'm a neutral. Votes: 0