Quotes by Henry Miller

"The tragedy of it is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition."

"One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life."

"Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring."

"Develop interest in life as you see it in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware."

"The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens."

"Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him."

"Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself."

"If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things."

"What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it?"

"True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself."

"In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest."

"The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them."

"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things."

"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience."

"Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such."

"Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."

"Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang's feeble imagination."

"Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane."

"In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance."

"Sin, guilt, neurosis they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge."

"We live in the mind, in ideas, in fragments. We no longer drink in the wild outer music of the streets - we remember only."

"The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts."

"The world dies over and over again, but the skeleton always gets up and walks."

"The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."

"The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way."

"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."

"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

"Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously."

"I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth."

"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive."

"In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other."

"When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat."

"The only thing we never get enough of is love and the only thing we never give enough of is love."

"The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love."

"The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference."

"Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur."

"We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy."

"Develop an interest in life as you see it the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."

"The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary."

"The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death."

"If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having."

"Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves."

"Instead of asking 'How much damage will the work in question bring about?' why not ask 'How much good? How much joy?'"

"There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something with which we are all so familiar that when a man appears who is without it we are at once enslaved by him."

"Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense."

"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."

"No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man's front embraces the whole universe."

"Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything except his own nature."

"An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness."