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. Henry Miller More Quotes by Henry Miller More Quotes From Henry Miller 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. Henry Miller communication important writing 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. Henry Miller cynical forgiving falling-in-love 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. Henry Miller prison-life crime literature Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it. Henry Miller fate inspirational life All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. Henry Miller courage dark inspirational 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. Henry Miller gun eye heart 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. Henry Miller beer men thinking The full and joyful acceptance of the worst in oneself may be the only sure way of transforming it. Henry Miller acceptance may way 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 Henry Miller farce leprosy saws We do not talk - we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of newspapers, magazines and digests. Henry Miller magazines reading facts Every day that we fail to live out the maximum of our potentialities we kill the Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ which is in us. Henry Miller maximum failing christ 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. Henry Miller men death moving The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. Henry Miller gratitude motivational beauty 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. Henry Miller psychosis fans silence 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. Henry Miller mirrors running blood Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire. Henry Miller passion fire mean I want to undress you, vulgarize you a bit. Henry Miller bits want sex 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. Henry Miller our-world giving-up peace 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. Henry Miller hero heart teacher 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. Henry Miller falling-in-love mean thinking
