"And the books you write. They're not you. They're not me sitting here, this Henry Miller. They belong to someone else. It's terrible. You can never rest."
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Quote collection
Henry Miller quotes (page 19 of 23)
441 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Words, sentences, ideas, no matter how subtle or ingenious, the maddest flights of poetry, the most profound dreams, the most hallucinating visions, are but crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow to commemorate an event which is untransmissible."
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"Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal."
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"I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: The world of art is the only such realm."
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"I read to be taken out of myself, to become ecstatic."
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"The blind lead the blind. It's the democratic way."
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"Everyman, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths."
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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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"For a metaphysical treat stop at the Big Sur Inn, which is also a haven for stray cats and dogs. Life along the South Coast is just a bed of roses, with a few thorns and nettles interspersed."
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"When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears."
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"She may be lying in bed reading a book, she may be making love with a prize fighter, or she may be running like mad through a field of stubble, one shoe one, one shoe off, a man named Corn Cob pursuing her hotly. Wherever she is I am standing in complete darkness; her absence blots me out."
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"Do not be duped by little duties. Do not be a chore man all your days."
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"All the lies and evasions by which man has nourished himself civilization, in a word is the fruits of the creative artist. It is the creative nature of man which has refused to let him lapse back into that unconscious unity with life which characterizes the animal world from which he made his escape."
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"The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses, which are always thoroughly human, even if despicable."
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"The sordid qualities imputed to the enemy are always those which we recognize as our own and therefore rise to slay, because only through projection do we realize the enormity and horror of them."
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"There are lone figures armed only with ideas, sometimes with just one idea, who blast away whole epochs in which we are enwrapped like mummies. Some are powerful enough to resurrect the dead. Some steal on us unawares and put a spell over us which it takes centuries to throw off. Some put a curse on us, for our st idity and inertia, and then it seems as if God himself were unable to lift it."
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"Every time you come to the limit of what is demanded of you, you are faced with the same problem-to be yourself!"
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"Day by day. No yesterdays and no tomorrows. The barometer never changes, the flag is always at half-mast."
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"Over there you think of nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it's different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you become something or somebody it is an accident, a miracle."
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"The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly; they underwrite it with their lives."
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