Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Man, Body, Mankind
I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. 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, and 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 of God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty
—Henry Miller
Topics: Happiness, Authors & Writing
Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines—these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Miracles
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Enemy, Enemies
Sin, guilt, neurosis-they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Knowledge
Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Books
The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Acceptance, Discovery
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Safety, Security, Change
We create our fate every day we live.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Fate
One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Getting Going, Instincts, Procrastination, Inaction
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Inspiration, Destiny
What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Sex, Humankind
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
—Henry Miller
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Civilization
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!
—Henry Miller
Topics: Inspiration, Inspirational
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Art, Writing, Writers, Authors & Writing
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Fashion
Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish
—Henry Miller
Topics: Americans
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Difficulty
We do not talk—we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Conversation
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.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Culture
Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Psychiatry
The real leader has no need to direct-he is content to point the way.
—Henry Miller
True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.
—Henry Miller
There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.
—Henry Miller
An artist is always alone—if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Solitude
Our diseases are our attachments.
—Henry Miller
Nine-tenths of our sickness can be prevented by right thinking plus right hygiene—nine-tenths of it.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Meditation, Health
Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.
—Henry Miller
Topics: Power
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.
—Henry Miller
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Kurt Vonnegut American Novelist
- Gore Vidal American Novelist
- Elizabeth Gilbert American Novelist
- William S. Burroughs American Novelist
- Anita Loos American Actor
- David Foster Wallace American Novelist, Essayist
- Robert Anton Wilson American Polymath
- Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
- Langston Hughes American Poet, Writer
- Nelson Algren American Writer
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