Henry Miller cytaty

strona 6

„Jestem sam, przepełnia mnie straszliwa pustka, tęsknota i lęk. Cały pokój wypełniają moje myśli. Nic poza mną i moimi myślami, moim lękami. Mógłbym wyobrazić sobie najbardziej niestworzone historie, mógłbym tańczyć, pluć, stroić miny, przeklinać, zawodzić – nikt by się o tym nie dowiedział, nikt nie usłyszałby tego. Myśl o takiej absolutnej prywatności mogłaby mnie doprowadzić do szaleństwa. To tak jak udany poród, wszystkie więzy odcięte. Jesteś odseparowany, nagi, samotny. Błogosławieństwo połączone z agonią. Masz mnóstwo czasu. Każda sekunda przytłacza cię jak góra. Toniesz w niej. Pustynie, morza, jeziora, oceany. Zegar wybija godziny jak rzeźnicki topór. Nicość. Świat. Ja i nie ja. Oomaharumooma. Wszystko musi mieć nazwę. Wszystkiego trzeba się nauczyć, doświadczyć, wszystko trzeba sprawdzić. Faites comme chez vous, chéri.”

„Seks jest jednym z dziewięciu powodów reinkarnacji. Pozostałych osiem jest bez znaczenia.”

„Cnota – suma rzeczy, których nie zrobiliśmy z lenistwa, tchórzostwa lub głupoty.”

„Celem życia jest żyć. To znaczy być świadomym – radośnie, do upojenia, pogodnie, bosko świadomym.”

„Mamy wszyscy różne życia przed sobą. Wszyscy chcemy stworzyć sobie najbardziej bezkonfliktowe i harmonijne warunki. Wszyscy chcemy osiągnąć pełnię życia. Czy musimy zwracać się do książek i nauczycieli, do nauki, religii, filozofii, czy musimy wiedzieć tak dużo – i tak mało! – ażeby obrać jakąś drogę? Czy nie możemy być w pełni rozbudzeni i świadomi bez tortur, na które sami się skazujemy?”

„Nikt nie może osiągnąć tego, czego pragnie, dopóki nie dojrzeje do tego.”

„Miłość to boogie-woogie hormonów.”

„Przepastna różnica dzieląca astrologię od innych nauk – jeśli wolno mi tak powiedzieć – polega na tym, iż astrologia nie zajmuje się faktami, lecz koncepcjami pierwotnymi. Twardy grunt, na jakim podobno stoi uczony, w astrologii ustępuje imponderabiliom.”

„Chcę zostawić bliznę na żywym ciele świata.”

„Paryż jest jednym z miejsc, gdzie kobieta krąży jak kotka w rui – szuka miłości, ale zadowoli się seksem w każdej chwili.”

„Wstyd to słowo, za którego pomocą wprowadzamy porządek całkowicie niezrozumiały.”

„Wymyśliliśmy słowo „chaos” na oznaczenie porządku, którego nie rozumiemy.”

„Zawsze fascynowało mnie zjawisko zła. Dobroć jest rzeczą trywialną. Ale niestety nie ma na świecie ludzi całkowicie złych. Zło mnie inspiruje. I fascynuje mnie, podobnie jak fascynowało Dostojewskiego.”

„Mamy wszyscy różne życia przed sobą. Wszyscy chcemy stworzyć sobie najbardziej bezkonfliktowe i harmonijne warunki. Wszyscy chcemy osiągnąć pełnię życia. Czy musimy zwracać się do książek i nauczycieli, do nauki, religii, filozofii, czy musimy wiedzieć tak dużo – i tak mało!”

“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!”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“The frantic desire to Live, to live at any cost, is not a result of the life rhythm in us, but of the death rhythm.”

“It is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. Paris is simply an artificial stage, a revolving stage that permits the spectator to glimpse all phases of the conflict. Of itself Paris initiates no dramas. They are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. Paris is the cradle of artificial births. Rocking here in the cradle each one slips back into his soil; one dreams back to Berlin, New York, Chicago, Vienna, Minsk,. Vienna is never more Vienna than Paris. Everything is raised to its apotheosis. The cradle gives up its babes and new ones take their place. You can real here on the walls Zola lived and Balzac and Dante and Strindberg and everybody who ever was anything. Everyone has lived here some time or other. Nobody dies here...”

“More than anything the French have a profound knowledge of the ways of life. They possess a tolerance and an acceptance of the way things are. Problems are faced with intelligence, patience, and a sense of humanity. I have more respect for them than any other nationality on the face of the earth.”

“Sleep, Napoleon! It was not your ideas they wanted, it was your corpse.”

“The history of the world is the history of a privileged few.”

“What an astounding thing is the voice! By what miracle is the hot magma of the earth transformed into that which we call speech? If out of clay such an abstract medium as words can be shaped what is to hinder us from leaving our bodies at will and taking up our abode on other planets or between the planets? What is to prevent us from rearranging all life, atomic, molecular, corporeal, stellar, diving? Who or what is powerful enough to eradicate this miraculous leaven which we bear within us like a seed and which, after we have embraced in our mind all the universe, is nothing more than a seed — since to say universe is as easy as to say seed, and we have yet to say greater things, things beyond saying, things limitless and inconceivable, things which no trick of language can encompass.”

“There was one artist who wrote as beautifully as he painted. That was Hokusai - He speaks for all artists, whether they are painters or not. [He wrote]: "I have been in love with painting ever since I became conscious of it at the age of six. I drew some pictures I thought fairly good when I was fifty, but really nothing I did before the age of seventy was of any value at all. At seventy three I have at last caught every aspect of nature-birds, fish, animals, insects, trees, grasses, all. When I am eighty I shall have developed still further. And I will really master the secrets of art at ninety. When I reach a hundred my work will be truly sublime, and my final goal will be attained around the age of one hundred and ten, when every line and dot I draw will be imbued with life."”

“The whole damn universe has to be taken apart, brick by brick, and reconstructed.”

“A guy who's always interested in the condition of the world, and changing it, either has no problems of his own, or refuses to face them… not wanting to face things of his own nature.”

“I've spoken many times about the Japanese woman. I've praised her again and again. But I have to tell you that I think the Japanese man is the worst. The women are such delicate creatures and they're treated abominably by the men. The Japanese men are pigs - even worse than American men.”

“There is only one thing which interests me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in books.”

“Perhaps the artist is nothing more than the personification of this universal maladjustment, this universal disequilibrium.”

“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.”

“This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty … what you will.”

“A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in….”

“Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life. 'Experience! More experience!”

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

“It was here in Big Sur that I first learned to say 'amen.'”

“He saw the humorous aspect of everything, which is the real test of the tragic sense.”

“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.”