"The man who is intoxicated with life does not pass judgment, does not seek to come to a conclusion, does not impose his message on the world."
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Quote collection
Henry Miller quotes (page 5 of 23)
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"Without a Coca-Cola life is unthinkable."
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"It is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars and hypocrites."
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"If one believes, then miracles occur."
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"By choosing to live above the ordinary level we create extraordinary problems for ourselves."
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"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."
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"The poet speaks adequately only when he speaks somewhat wildly... not with intellect alone, but with intellect inebriated by nectar."
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"Man, as man, has never realized himself. The greater part of him, his potential being, has always been submerged. What is history if not the endless story of his repeated failures?"
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"Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown."
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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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"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."
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"The world is the mirror of myself dying."
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"Her fluency was marvelous. She would say things at random, intricate, flamelike, or slide off into a parenthetical limbo peppered with fireworks-- admirable linguistic feats which a practiced writer might struggle for hours to achieve."
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"What is an artist? He's a man who has antennae, who knows how to hook up to the currents which are in atmosphere, in the cosmos."
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"The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble."
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"The truly great writer does not want to write: he wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination. The first quivering word he puts to paper is the word of the wounded angel: pain."
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"If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch."
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"The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference."
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"You make me tremendously happy to hold me undivided - to let me be the artist, as it were, and yet not forgo the man, the animal, the hungry, insatiable lover. No woman has ever granted me all the privileges I need - and you, why you sing out so blithely, so boldly, with a laugh even - yes, you invite me to go ahead, be myself, benture anything. I adore you for that. That is where you are truly regal, a woman extraordinary. What a woman you are! I laugh to myself now when I think of you. I have no fear of your femaleness."
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"It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world - it's the American way of looking at things."
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