“I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.”

—  Henry Miller , book Tropic of Capricorn

Source: Tropic of Capricorn

Last update Aug. 4, 2024. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to expres…" by Henry Miller?
Henry Miller photo
Henry Miller 187
American novelist 1891–1980

Related quotes

Jack London photo

“I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

Letter to Charles Warren Stoddard (21 August 1903)

Frank Sinatra photo

“What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.”

Frank Sinatra (1915–1998) American singer and film actor

In a 1965 interview with Walter Cronkite, as quoted in "Just A Couple Of Legends" CBS News.com (20 May 1998) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/05/20/entertainment/main9899.shtml

Sylvia Plath photo

“What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid. I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Katherine Mansfield photo

“I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing (Though I may write about cabmen. That's no matter.) But warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Journal entry (14 October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)

“Although I am not as strict a vegetarian as I once was, I do continue to choose to eat more like a vegetarian than not. I would call myself a "conscious eater". It all started with my desire to be as lean and healthy as possible as a teenager around 17-years-old. With more education, as well as trial and error, it also turned into an expression of my attempt to show compassion for all living things.”

Charlene Wong (1966) Canadian figure skater

" Charlene Wong: Everything is okay in the end and if it's not okay, it's not the end", in Lifeskate.com (15 December 2008) http://www.lifeskate.com/skate/2008/12/charlene-wong-everything-is-okay-in-the-end-and-if-its-not-okay-its-not-the-end.html

Nicole Krauss photo

“Sometimes I thought about nothing and sometimes I thought about my life. At least I made a living. What kind of living? A living. It wasn't easy. I found out how little is unbearable.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Hendrik Werkman photo

“For me, life would be worthless if there was not modern art and if I did not had the opportunity to express myself in it anyhow, now that I have gradually found the way I can express myself.”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Voor mij zou het leven waardeloos zijn als er niet de moderne kunst was en als ik niet de mogelijkheid had om me daarin te uiten op welke manier dan ook, nu ik de wijze waarop ik mij kan uiten langzamerhand heb gevonden.
Quote of Werkman in his letter to August Henkels, June 1942, as cited by Doeke Sijens in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 64
1940's

“What I do for a living is talk. What I do for life is action.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 140

Peter F. Drucker photo

“The problem in my life and other people's lives is not the absence of knowing what to do but the absence of doing it.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant
Jean Rhys photo

“She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Related topics