Henry Miller Quotes

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

Develop interest in life as you see it.. view

By: Henry Miller

Develop an interest in life as you see it.. view

By: Henry Miller

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood... view

By: Henry Miller

Chaos is the score upon which reality is written... view

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

Analysis brings no curative powers in its train.. view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance... view

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

Life is 440 horsepower in a 2-cylinder engine... view

By: Henry Miller

What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature... view

By: Henry Miller

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

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... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller

Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything except his own nature... view

By: Henry Miller

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

By: Henry Miller