Quotes by Henry Miller

“What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act according to their beliefs”

“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.”

“The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and were passing one another without a look of recognition.”

“We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.”

“Who hates the Jews more than the Jew?”

Whats a fuck when what I want is love?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Ik kwam er achter dat ik er mijn hele leven heus niet naar had verlang om te leven - als wat anderen doen tenminste leven genoemd kan worden - maar wel om mezelf te kunnen uitdrukken.

Lifes wildest moment---she kneels on the sidewalk. Everything else she does is lies, lies.

I have found God, but he is insufficient.

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

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.

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.

...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. 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. And all the while a meter is running inside and there is no hand that can reach in there and shut it off.

Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown...