Henry Miller Quotes About Literature
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Sin, guilt, neurosis; they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
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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.
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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.
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Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.
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Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.
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Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The world dies over and over again, but the skeleton always gets up and walks.
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What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature.
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There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.
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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.
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The world is the mirror of myself dying.
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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.
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Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
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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.
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The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.
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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.
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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.
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The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.
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The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.
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Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.
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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.
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Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.
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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.
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Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
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And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?
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Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.
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Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.
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