Henry Miller: Trending quotes

Henry Miller trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection
Henry Miller: 374 quotes79 likes

“Political leaders are never leaders. For leaders we have to look to the Awakeners! Lao Tse, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Milarepa, Gurdjiev, Krishnamurti.”

Henry Miller

Source: My Bike & Other Friends (1977), p.12

“Often, when following the trail which meanders over the hills, I pull myself up in an effort to encompass the glory and the grandeur which envelops the whole horizon. Often, when the clouds pile up in the north and the sea is churned with white caps, I say to myself: "This is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked out on from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look."”

Henry Miller book Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch

Source: Miller, H. (1957). Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, New Directions Books, New York, p. 6.

“Writing is Crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain & sorrow to commemorate an event which is intransmissible.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“We’re creators by permission, by grace as it were. No one creates alone, of and by himself. An artist is an instrument that registers something already existent, something which belongs to the whole world, and which, if he is an artist, he is compelled to give back to the world.”

Henry Miller book Sexus

The Rosy Crucifixion I : Sexus (1949)

“To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in.”

Henry Miller

"Reunion in Brooklyn" http://books.google.com/books?id=uzz94pR0VQsC&q=%22To+live+without+killing+is+a+thought+which+could+electrify+the+world+if+men+were+only+capable+of+staying+awake+long+enough+to+let+the+idea+soak+in%22&pg=PA131#v=onepage, Sunday After the War (1944)

“Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines — these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.”

Henry Miller book Black Spring

Black Spring (1938)

“I blush to think of our origins - our hands are steeped in Blood & Crime. And there is no letup to the slaughter and pillage.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“I tell you, struggle is what is missing in the lives of most young people today. If they think I'm going to support them while they create great works of art, then they've missed the point of my work, of my life! In the process of becoming a writer or an artist one has to be willing to starve. Struggle is the most invaluable experience of all. Suffering seems to be the inevitable fate of the creative sensitive types. Poverty, disease, death, unrequited love affairs, and disappointments of every sort fan the flame of the artistic spirit. The greatest works of art were not created by spoiled brats. They were born for the most part out of a sense of despair, and if not despair then just plain hard work. Somewhere along the line the artist learns the art of transformation.”

Henry Miller

Reflections (1981)

“The artist who becomes thoroughly aware consequently ceases to be one.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“I venerate van Gogh. He was a remarkable human being, a man who knew about love. His work reflects a spirit filled with light, even though his life was a tragedy in many ways.”

Henry Miller

Reflections (1981)

“Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“Wagner wrote an opera titled Tristan and Yseult and in it there is a theme called Love Death theme. It is so sensual, so sexual that he was criticized for having introduced sex into music. And that was quite a few years before the appearance of Elvis Presley!”

Henry Miller

Reflections (1981)

“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.”

Henry Miller book Sexus

The Rosy Crucifixion I : Sexus (1949), Chapter 14. (New York: Grove Press, c1965, p. 339)

“Things happen or they don't happen, that's all. Nothing is accomplished by sweat and struggle. Nearly everything which we call life is just insomnia, an agony because we've lost the habit of falling asleep.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.”

Henry Miller book The Colossus of Maroussi

The Colossus of Maroussi (1941)

“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.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“Every man is working out his destiny in his own way and nobody can be of any help except by being kind, generous, and patient.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

“As far as Bach is concerned, I never came close to liking him [-] My favourite composer is Scriabin -[and] his Fifth sonata, in my mind, the greatest piece of music ever written.”

Henry Miller

Reflections (1981)

“Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.”

Henry Miller

Interview, 1961

“I am against revolutions because they always involve a return to the status quo.”

Henry Miller

Henry Miller on Writing (1964)