Quotes by Henry Miller

If at eighty youre not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin and keepin power. If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on your way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss - under your breath, of course - Fuck you, Jack! you dont own me. If you can whistle up your ass, if you can be turned on by a fetching bottom or a lovely pair of teats, if you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from going sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man youve got it half licked.

The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.

New York! The white prisons, the sidewalks swarming with maggots, the breadlines, the opium joints that are built like palaces, the kikes that are there, the lepers, the thugs, and above all, the ennui, the monotony of faces, streets, legs, houses, skyscrapers, meals, posters, jobs, crimes, loves... A whole city erected over a hollow pit of nothingness. Meaningless. Absolute meaningless.

My one thought is to get out of New York, to experience something genuinely American.

1) Work on one thing at a time until finished.2) Start no more new books, add no more new material to Black Spring.3) Dont be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.4) Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!5) When you cant create you can work.6) Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.7) Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.8) Dont be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure

Before I shall have become a man again I shall probably exist as a park, a sort of natural park in which people come to rest, to while away the time. What they say or do will be of little matter, for they will bring only their fatigue, their boredom, their hopelessness.

How speak about an art which no one recognizes as an art? I know that a great deal has already been written about the art of the cinema. One can read about it most every day in the newspapers & the magazines. But it is not the art of the cinema which you will find discussed therein--it is rather dire, botched embryo as it now stands revealed before our eyes, the still-birth which was mangled in the womb by the obstetricians of art.

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.

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act accordingly to their beliefs.

There is something healthy and invigorating about direct action.

The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.

The only artists for whom I would make way are - children. For me the paintings of children belong side by side with the works of the masters.

Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life. Fate is what kicks you in the ass to make you do it.

One of the reasons why so few of us ever act instead of react is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.

The ordinary man is involved in action the hero acts. An immense difference.

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

The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.

We create our fate every day ... most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.

Like ships men flounder time and time again.

We create our fate every day we live.