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For A Hundred Years Or More The World, Our World, Has Been Dying. And Not One Man, In These Last Hundred Years Or So, Has Been Crazy Enough To Put A Bomb Up The Asshole Of Creation And Set It Off. The World Is Rotting Away, Dying Piecemeal. But It Needs The Coup De Grace, It Needs To Be Blown To Smithereens. Not One Of Us Is Intact, And Yet We Have In Us All The Continents And The Seas Between The Continents And The Birds Of The Air. We Are Going To Put It Down ― The Evolution Of This World Which Has Died But Which Has Not Been Buried.

-Henry Miller

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For A Hundred Years

Henry Miller

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For A Hundred Years Or More The World, Our World, Has Been Dying. And Not One Man, In These Last Hundred Years Or So, Has Been Crazy Enough To Put A Bomb Up The Asshole Of Creation And Set It Off. The World Is Rotting Away, Dying Piecemeal. But It Needs The Coup De Grace, It Needs To Be Blown To Smithereens. Not One Of Us Is Intact, And Yet We Have In Us All The Continents And The Seas Between The Continents And The Birds Of The Air. We Are Going To Put It Down ― The Evolution Of This World Which Has Died But Which Has Not Been Buried.

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We Create Our Fate Every Day . . . Most Of The Ills We Suffer From Are Directly Traceable To Our Own Behavior.

I Struggled In The Beginning. I Said I Was Going To Write The Truth, So Help Me God. And I Thought I Was. I Found I Couldn't. Nobody Can Write The Absolute Truth.

But It's Just Because The Chances Are All Against You, Just Because There Is So Little Hope, That Life Is Sweet Over Here.

There Are No "facts"- There Is Only The Fact That Man, Every Man Everywhere In The World, Is On His Way To Ordination. Some Men Take The Long Route And Some Take The Short Route. Every Man Is Working Out His Own Way And Nobody Can Be Of Help Except By Being Kind, Generous, And Patient.

A Book Lying Idle On A Shelf Is Wasted Ammunition. Like Money, Books Must Be Kept In Constant Circulation... A Book Is Not Only A Friend, It Makes Friends For You. When You Have Possessed A Book With Mind And Spirit, You Are Enriched. But When You Pass It On You Are Enriched Threefold.

Every Man With A Bellyful Of The Classics Is An Enemy To The Human Race.

When I Reflect That The Task Which The Artist Implicitly Sets Himself Is To Overthrow Existing Values, To Make Of The Chaos About Him An Order Which Is His Own, To Sow Strife And Ferment So That By The Emotional Release Those Who Are Dead May Be Restored To Life, Then It Is That I Run With Joy To The Great And Imperfect Ones, Their Confusion Nourishes Me, Their Stuttering Is Like Divine Music To My Ears.

I Feel That America Is Essentially Against The Artist, That The Enemy Of America Is The Artist, Because He Stands For Individuality And Creativeness, And That's Un-american Somehow.

The Earth Is Not A Lair, Neither Is It A Prison. The Earth Is A Paradise, The Only One We'll Ever Know. We Will Realize It The Moment We Open Our Eyes. We Don't Have To Make It A Paradise-it Is One. We Have Only To Make Ourselves Fit To Inhabit It. The Man With The Gun, The Man With Murder In His Heart, Cannot Possibly Recognize Paradise Even When He Is Shown It.

The Blind Lead The Blind. It's The Democratic Way.

Certainly Paradise, Whatever, Wherever It Be, Contains Flaws. (paradisical Flaws, If You Like.) If It Did Not, It Would Be Incapable Of Drawing The Hearts Of Men Or Angels.

You Can Look At Things All Your Life And Not See Them Really. This ‘seeing’ Is, In A Way, A ‘not Seeing,’ If You Follow Me. It Is More Of A Search For Something, In Which, Being Blindfolded, You Develop The Tactile, The Olfactory, The Auditory Senses —and Thus See For The First Time.

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.

The Poem Is The Dream Made Flesh, In A Two-fold Sense: As Work Of Art, And As Life, Which Is A Work Of Art.

For There Is Only One Great Adventure And That Is Inward Toward The Self, And For That, Time Nor Space Nor Even Deeds Matter.

What Is Not In The Open Street Is False, Derived, That Is To Say, Literature.

Imagination Is The Voice Of Daring. If There Is Anything Godlike About God It Is That. He Dared To Imagine Everything.

Whatever There Be Of Progress In Life Comes Not Through Adaptation But Through Daring.

A Book Is A Part Of Life, A Manifestation Of Life, Just As Much As A Tree Or A Horse Or A Star. It Obeys Its Own Rhythms, Its Own Laws, Whether It Be A Novel, A Play, Or A Diary. The Deep, Hidden Rhythm Of Life Is Always There - That Of The Pulse, The Heart Beat.

The Art Of Living Is Based On Rhythm - On Give & Take, Ebb & Flow, Light & Dark, Life & Death. By Acceptance Of All Aspects Of Life, Good & Bad, Right & Wrong, Yours & Mine, The Static, Defensive Life, Which Is What Most People Are Cursed With, Is Converted Into A Dance, 'the Dance Of Life,' Metamorphosis.

The Most Wonderful Opportunity Which Life Offers Is To Be Human.

To Be Joyous Is To Be A Madman In A World Of Sad Ghosts.

The Frenchman Is First And Foremost A Man. He Is Likeable Often Just Because Of His Weaknesses, Which Are Always Thoroughly Human, Even If Despicable.

Everything Hinges On How You Look At Things

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.

We Do Not Talk - We Bludgeon One Another With Facts And Theories Gleaned From Cursory Readings Of Newspapers, Magazines And Digests.

Once You Have Given Up The Ghost, Everything Follows With Dead Certainty, Even In The Midst Of Chaos.

It Is The American Vice, The Democratic Disease Which Expresses Its Tyranny By Reducing Everything Unique To The Level Of The Herd.

What Holds The World Together, As I Have Learned From Bitter Experience, Is Sexual Intercourse.

We Don't Trust Our Five Senses; We Rely On Our Critics And Educators, All Of Whom Are Failures In The Realm Of Creation.

Topographically The Country Is Magnificent - And Terrifying. Why Terrifying? Because Nowhere Else In The World Is The Divorce Between Man And Nature So Complete. Nowhere Have I Encountered Such A Dull, Monotonous Fabric Of Life As Here In America. Here Boredom Reaches Its Peak.

When You Come, Please Be So Kind As To Check Your Neuroses And Psychoses At The Gate... Fans And Other Obnoxious Pests Would Do Well To Maintain Silence.

Sin, Guilt, Neurosis; They Are One And The Same, The Fruit Of The Tree Of Knowledge.

I Have Found God, But He Is Insufficient.

I Am Thinking Of One Woman And The Rest Is Blotto. I Say I Am Thinking Of Her, But The Truth Is I Am Dying A Stellar Death. I Am Lying There Like A Sick Star Waiting For The Light To Go Out. Years Ago I Lay On This Same Bed And I Waited And Waited To Be Born. Nothing Happened. Except That My Mother, In Her Lutheran Rage, Threw A Bucket Of Water Over Me. My Mother, Poor Imbecile That She Was, Thought I Was Lazy. She Didn't Know That I Had Gotten Caught In The Stellar Drift, That I Was Being Pulverized To A Black Extinction Out There In The Farthest Rim Of The Universe.

We Kill Because We Are Afraid Of Our Own Shadow, Afraid That If We Used A Little Common Sense We'd Have To Admit That Our Glorious Principles Were Wrong.

Voyages Are Accomplished Inwardly.

What I Secretly Longed For Was To Disentangle Myself Of All Those Lives Which Had Woven Themselves Into The Pattern Of My Own Life And Were Making My Destiny A Part Of Theirs. To Shake Myself Free Of These Accumulating Experiences Which Were Mine Only By Force Of Inertia Required A Violent Effort. Now And Then I Lunged And Tore At The Net, But Only To Become More Enmeshed. My Liberation Seemed To Involve Pain And Suffering To Those Near And Dear To Me. Every Move I Made For My Own Private Good Brought About Reproach And Condemnation. I Was A Traitor A Thousand Times Over.

Out Yonder They May Curse, Revile, And Torture One Another, Defile All The Human Instincts, Make A Shambles Of Creation (if It Were In Their Power), But Here, No, Here, It Is Unthinkable, Here There Is Abiding Peace, The Peace Of God, And The Serene Security Created By A Handful Of Good Neighbors Living At One With The Creature World.

Why Change The World? Change Worlds!

Until He [man] Has Become Fully Human, Until He Learns To Conduct Himself As A Member Of The Earth, He Will Continue To Create Gods Who Will Destroy Him. The Tragedy Of Greece Lies Not In The Destruction Of A Great Culture But In The Abortion Of A Great Vision.

Life Is Constantly Providing Us With New Funds, New Resources, Even When We Are Reduced To Immobility. In Life's Ledger There Is No Such Thing As Frozen Assets.

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.

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. We Don't Know How To Let Go. We're Like A Jack-in-the-box Perched On Top Of A Spring And The More We Struggle The Harder It Is To Get Back In The Box.

Even If One’s Whole Life Were A Mistake, There Is Always Time To Change.

In Every Man's Heart There Is Anchored A Little Schooner.

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.

Destiny Is What You Are Supposed To Do In Life. Fate Is What Kicks You In The Ass To Make You Do It.

It's The Pleasure Of Picking Up The Brush And Seeing What Happens.

When You Can't Create You Can Work

Moralities, Ethics, Laws, Customs, Beliefs, Doctrines - These Are Of Trifling Import. All That Matters Is That The Miraculous Become The Norm.

Perhaps I Am Still Very Much Of An American. That Is To Say, Naïve, Optimistic, Gullible. In The Eyes Of A European, What Am I But An American To The Core, An American Who Exposes His Americanism Like A Sore. Like It Or Not, I Am A Product Of This Land Of Plenty, A Believer In Superabundance, A Believer In Miracles.

The City Of New York Is Like An Enormous Citadel, A Modern Carcassonne. Walking Between The Magnificent Skyscrapers One Feels The Presence On The Fringe Of A Howling, Raging Mob, A Mob With Empty Bellies, A Mob Unshaven And In Rags.

Forget The Books You Want To Write. Think Only Of The Book You Are Writing.

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.

Analysis Brings No Curative Powers In Its Train; It Merely Makes Us Conscious Of The Existence Of An Evil, Which, Oddly Enough, Is Consciousness.

It Isn't The Oceans Which Cut Us Off From The World - It's The American Way Of Looking At Things.

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.

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 (by Writing) 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.

America Is No Place For An Artist: To Be An Artist Is To Be A Moral Leper, An Economic Misfit, A Social Liability. A Corn-fed Hog Enjoys A Better Life Than A Creative Writer, Painter Or Musician. To Be A Rabbit Is Better Still.

Leave Out The Parts That Readers Tend To Skip.

He Is Trying To Recapture His Innocence, Yet All He Succeeds In Doing (by Writing) Is To Inoculate The World With A Virus Of His Disillusionment.

Perhaps I Have Not Lined His Portrait Too Clearly. But If He Exists, If Only For The Reason That I Have Imagined Him To Be. He Came From The Blue And Returns To The Blue. He Has Not Perished, He Is Not Lost. Neither Will He Be Forgotten.

I'm Delirious Because I'm Dying So Fast.

There Is Only One Thing Which Interests Me Vitally Now, And That Is The Recording Of All That Which Is Omitted In Books

The Goal Of Life Is Not To Possess Power But To Radiate It.

The World Itself Is Pregnant With Failure, Is The Perfect Manifestation Of Imperfection, Of The Consciousness Of Failure.

We Are Dancing In The Hollow Of Nothingness. We Are One Flesh, But Separated Like Stars.

The Teutons Have Been Singing The Swan Song Ever Since They Entered The Ranks Of History. They Have Always Confounded Truth With Death.

Of Course You Don't Die. Nobody Dies. Death Doesn't Exist. You Only Reach A New Level Of Vision, A New Realm Of Consciousness, A New Unknown World.

We Have Been Educated To Such A Fine - Or Dull - Point That We Are Incapable Of Enjoying Something New, Something Different, Until We Are First Told What It's All About. We Don't Trust Our Five Senses; We Rely On Our Critics And Educators, All Of Whom Are Failures In The Realm Of Creation. In Short, The Blind Lead The Blind. It's The Democratic Way.

Until We Accept The Fact That Life Itself Is Founded In Mystery, We Shall Learn Nothing.

The Moment One Gives Close Attention To Any Thing, Even A Blade Of Grass It Becomes A Mysterious, Awesome, Indescribably Magnificent World In Itself.

I Will Never Again Go To People Under False Pretenses Even If It Is To Give Them The Holy Bible. I Will Never Again Sell Anything, Even If I Have To Starve. I Am Going Home Now And I Will Sit Down And Really Write About People.

If You Can Fall In Love Again And Again If You Can Forgive As Well As Forget, If You Can Keep From Growing Sour, Surly, Bitter And Cynical You've Got It Half Licked.

Falling In Love

For One Crime Which Is Expiated In Prison Ten Thousand Are Committed Thoughtlessly By Those Who Condemn.

Every Time You Come To The Limit Of What Is Demanded Of You, You Are Faced With The Same Problem-to Be Yourself!

The Learning We Received Only Tended To Obscure Our Vision. From The Day We Went To School We Learned Nothing; On The Contrary, We Were Made Obtuse, We Were Wrapped In A Fog Of Words And Abstractions.

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.

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.

Real Love Is Never Perplexed, Never Qualifies, Never Rejects, Never Demands. It Replenishes, By Grace Of Restoring Unlimited Circulation. It Burns, Because It Knows The True Meaning Of Sacrifice. It Is Life Illuminated.

We Live At The Edge Of The Miraculous.

The Real Leader Has No Need To Lead - He Is Content To Point The Way.

When Into The Womb Of Time Everything Is Again Withdrawn Chaos Will Be Restored And Chaos Is The Score Upon Which Reality Is Written.

Whenever A Taboo Is Broken, Something Good Happens, Something Vitalizing. Taboos After All Are Only Hangovers, The Product Of Diseased Minds, You Might Say, Of Fearsome People Who Hadn't The Courage To Live And Who Under The Guise Of Morality And Religion Have Imposed These Things Upon Us.

To Sing You Must First Open Your Mouth. You Must Have A Pair Of Lungs, And A Little Knowledge Of Music. It Is Not Necessary To Have An Accordion, Or A Guitar. The Essential Thing Is To Want To Sing. This Then Is A Song. I Am Singing.

You Must Be Life For Me To The Very End," So He Writes. "that Is The Only Way In Which To Sustain My Idea Of You. Because You Have Gotten, As You See, Tied Up With Something So Vital To Me, I Do Not Think I Shall Ever Shake You Off. Nor Do I Wish To. I Want You To Live More Vitally Every Day, As I Am Dead. That Is Why, When I Speak Of You To Others, I Am Just A Bit Ashamed. It's Hard To Talk Of One's Self So Intimately

I Need To Be Alone. I Need To Ponder My Shame And My Despair In Seclusion; I Need The Sunshine And The Paving Stones Of The Streets Without Companions, Without Conversation, Face To Face With Myself, With Only The Music Of My Heart For Company.

The New Always Carries With It The Sense Of Violation, Of Sacrilege. What Is Dead Is Sacred; What Is New, That Is Different, Is Evil, Dangerous, Or Subversive.

I Had To Learn, As I Soon Did, That One Must Give Up Everything And Not Do Anything Else But Write, That One Must Writer And Write And Write, Even If Everybody In The World Advises You Against It, Even If Nobody Believes In You.

Writing Is Its Own Reward.

All My Good Reading, You Might Say, Was Done In The Toilet. There Are Passages In Ulysses Which Can Be Read Only In The Toilet - If One Wants To Extract The Full Flavor Of Their Content.

From The Little Reading I Had Done I Had Observed That The Men Who Were Most In Life, Who Were Molding Life, Who Were Life Itself, Ate Little, Slept Little, Owned Little Or Nothing. They Had No Illusions About Duty, Or The Perpetuation Of Their Kith And Kin, Or The Preservation Of The State. They Were Interested In Truth And In Truth Alone. They Recognized Only One Kind Of Activity - Creation.

Part Of The Act Of Creating Is In Discovering Your Own Kind. They Are Everywhere. But Don't Look For Them In The Wrong Places.

Art Teaches Nothing, Except The Significance Of Life.

One Can Be Absolutely Truthful And Sincere Even Though Admittedly The Most Outrageous Liar. Fiction And Invention Are Of The Very Fabric Of Life.

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.

I Soon Found Out You Can't Change The World. The Best You Can Do Is To Learn To Live With It.

I Had A Microscopic Eye For The Blemish, For The Grain Of Ugliness Which To Me Constituted The Sole Beauty Of The Object.

Who Hates The Jews More Than The Jew?

Every Day The Choice Is Presented To Us, To Live Up To The Spirit That Is In Us, Or Deny It.

The Man Who Is Forever Disturbed About The Condition Of Humanity Either Has No Problems Of His Own Or Has Refused To Face Them.

...when You Are Convinced That All The Exits Are Blocked, Either You Take To Believing In Miracles Or You Stand Still Like The Hummingbird. The Miracle Is That The Honey Is Always There, Right Under Your Nose, Only You Were Too Busy Searching Elsewhere To Realize It. The Worst Is Not Death But Being Blind, Blind To The Fact That Everything About Life Is In The Nature Of The Miraculous.

Any Genuine Philosophy Leads To Action And From Action Back Again To Wonder, To The Enduring Fact Of Mystery.

To Have Her Here In Bed With Me, Breathing On Me, Her Hair In My Mouth—i Count That Something Of A Miracle.

There Are Moments When The Elixir Of Life Rises To Such Over−brimming Splendor That The Soul Spills Over. In The Seraphic Smile Of The Madonnas The Soul Is Seen To Flood The Psyche. The Moon Of The Face Becomes Full; The Equation Is Perfect. A Minute, A Half−minute, A Second Later, The Miracle Has Passed. Something Intangible , Something Inexplicable, Was Given Out-and Received.

Prayers Are Offered Up Daily - Without Charge... Refreshments Are Served When Demanded.

That We Cannot Rise Equal To Situations When We Are In Them — That Is The Tragedy Of Life.

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.

The Light Of Greece Opened My Eyes, Penetrated My Pores, Expanded My Whole Being.

Even If It Doesn't Work, There Is Something Healthy And Invigorating About Direct Action

You Have To Write A Million Words Before You Find Your Voice As A Writer.

Who But The Artist Has The Power To Open Man Up, To Set Free The Imagination? The Others - Priest, Teacher, Saint, Statesman, Warrior - Hold Us To The Path Of History. They Keep Us Chained To The Rock, That The Vultures May Eat Out Our Hearts. It Is The Artist Who Has The Courage To Go Against The Crowd; He Is The Unrecognized "hero Of Our Time" - And Of All Time.

Everything Remains Unsettled Forever, Depend On It

All The Men She's Been With And Now You, Just You, And The Barges Going By, Masts And Hulls, The Whole Damned Current Of Life Flowing Through You, Through Her, Through All The Guys Behind You And After You, The Flowers And The Birds And The Sun Streaming In And The Fragrance Of It Choking You, Annihilating You.

A Year Ago, Six Months Ago, I Thought That I Was An Artist. I No Longer Think About It, I Am. Everything That Was Literature Has Fallen From Me. There Are No More Books To Be Written, Thank God. This Then? 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.

Develop An Interest In Life As You See It.

Interest In Life

I Made Up My Mind That I Would Hold Onto Nothing, That I Would Expect Nothing.

When You Surrender, The Problem Ceases To Exist. Try To Solve It, Or Conquer It, And You Only Set Up More Resistance. . . . The Most Difficult Thing To Admit, And To Realize With One's Whole Being, Is That You Alone Control Nothing. . . .

Greece Is The Home Of The Gods; They May Have Died But Their Presence Still Makes Itself Felt. The Gods Were Of Human Proportion: They Were Created Out Of The Human Spirit.

Human Beings Make A Strange Fauna And Flora. From A Distance They Appear Negligible; Close Up They Are Apt To Appear Ugly And Malicious. More Than Anything They Need To Be Surrounded With Sufficient Space―space Even More Than Time.

The Essential Thing Is To Want To Sing. This Then Is A Song. I Am Singing.

The Practice Of Any Art Demands More Than 'mere Savoir Faire'. One Must Not Only Be In Love With What One Does, One Must Also Know How To Make Love. In Love Self Is Obliterated. Only The Beloved Counts.

Life Is 440 Horsepower In A 2-cylinder Engine.

Music Is A Beautiful Opiate, If You Don't Take It Too Seriously.

Even The Idiot May Have A Message For Us

Those Who Are Truly Decrepit, Living Corpses, So To Speak, Are The Middle-aged, Middle-class Men And Woman Who Are Stuck In Their Comfortable Grooves And Imagine That The Status Quo Will Least Forever Or Else Are So Frightened It Won't, That They Have Retreated Into Their Mental Bomb Shelters To Wait It Out.

We Are All Part Of Creation, All Kings, All Poets, All Musicians; We Have Only To Open Up, Only To Discover What Is Already There.

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.

Hope Is A Bad Thing. It Means That You Are Not What You Want To Be. It Means That Part Of You Is Dead, If Not All Of You. It Means That You Entertain Illusions. It's A Sort Of Spiritual Clap, I Should Say.

It Is Our Destiny To Live With The Wrong As Well As The Right Kind Of Citizens, And To Learn From Them, The Wrong-minded Ones, As Much Or More As From Others. If We Have Not Yet Succeeded -after How Many Centuries?- In Eliminating From Life The Elements Which Plague Us Perhaps We Need To Question Life More Closely. Perhaps Our Refusal To Face Reality Is The Only Ill We Suffer From, And All The Rest But Illusion And Delusion. (p.26)

I See America Spreading Disaster. I See America As A Black Curse Upon The World. I See A Long Night Settling In And That Mushroom Which Has Poisoned The World Withering At The Roots.

Everything Was For Tomorrow, But Tomorrow Never Came. The Present Was Only A Bridge And On This Bridge They Are Still Groaning, As The World Groans, And Not One Idiot Ever Thinks Of Blowing Up The Bridge.

If I Were Reading A Book And Happened To Strike A Wonderful Passage I Would Close The Book Then And There And Go For A Walk. I Hated The Thought Of Coming To The End Of A Good Book. I Would Tease It Along, Delay The Inevitable As Long As Possible, But Always, When I Hit A Great Passage, I Would Stop Reading Immediately. Out I Would Go, Rain, Hail, Snow Or Ice, And Chew The Cud.

Example Moves The World More Than Doctrine. The Great Exemplars Are The Poets Of Action, And It Makes Little Difference Whether They Be Forces For Good Or Forces For Evil.

One Thing Is Certain, That When You Die And Are Resurrected You Belong To The Earth And Whatever Is Of The Earth Is Yours Inalienably. You Become An Anomaly Of Nature, A Being Without Shadow; You Will Never Die Again But Only Pass Away Like The Phenomena About You.

Your Nearness Is The Nearness Of Planets. I Am The Void Between You. If I Withdraw There Will Be No Void For You To Swim In.

Life's Wildest Moment---she Kneels On The Sidewalk. Everything Else She Does Is Lies, Lies.

One Can See Now How The Idea Of Heaven Takes Hold Of Men's Consciousness, How It Gains Ground Even When All The Props Have Been Knocked From Under It. There Must Be Another World Beside This Swamp In Which Everything Is Dumped Pell-mell. It's Hard To Imagine What It Can Be Like, This Heaven That Men Dream About.

I Have Always Looked Upon Decay As Being Just As Wonderful And Rich An Expression Of Life As Growth.

I Didn't Dare To Think Of Anything Then Except The "facts." To Get Beneath The Facts I Would Have Had To Be An Artist, And One Doesn't Become An Artist Overnight. First You Have To Be Crushed, To Have Your Conflicting Points Of View Annihilated. You Have To Be Wiped Out As A Human Being In Order To Be Born Again An Individual. You Have To Be Carbonized And Mineralized In Order To Work Upwards From The Last Common Denominator Of The Self. You Have To Get Beyond Pity In Order To Feel From The Very Roots Of Your Being.

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.

Without A Coca-cola Life Is Unthinkable.

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.

What Are Our Conductors Giving Us Year After Year? Only Fresh Corpses. Over These Beautifully Embalmed Sonatas, Toccatas, Symphonies And Operas The Public Dance The Jitterbug. Night And Day Without Let The Radio Drowns Us In A Hog-wash Of The Most Nauseating, Sentimental Ditties. From The Churches Comes The Melancholy Dirge Of The Dead Christ, A Music Which Is No More Sacred Than A Rotten Turnip.

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.

Better To Separate Than Never To Marry.

And The Books You Write. They're Not You. They're Not Me Sitting Here, This Henry Miller. They Belong To Someone Else. It's Terrible. You Can Never Rest.

Surrealism Is Merely The Reflection Of The Death Process. It Is One Of The Manifestations Of A Life Becoming Extinct, A Virus Which Quickens The Inevitable End.

Chaos Is The Score Upon Which Reality Is Written.

Order And Chaos

If I Am Against The Condition Of The World It Is Not Because I Am A Moralist, It Is Because I Want To Laugh More. I Don't Say That God Is One Grand Laugh: I Say That You've Got To Laugh Hard Before You Can Get Anywhere Near God. My Whole Aim In Life Is To Get Near To God, That Is, To Get Nearer To Myself. That's Why It Doesn't Matter To Me What Road I Take. But Music Is Very Important. Music Is A Tonic For The Pineal Gland. Music Isn't Bach Or Beethoven; Music Is The Can Opener Of The Soul. It Makes You Terribly Quiet Inside, Makes You Aware That There's A Roof To Your Being.

Remorse Is Impotence; It Will Sin Again. Only Repentance Is Strong - It Can End Everything.

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.

Civilization Is Drugs, Alcohol, Engines Of War, Prostitution, Machines And Machine Slaves, Low Wages, Bad Food, Bad Taste, Prisons, Reformatories, Lunatic Asylums, Divorce, Perversion, Brutal Sports, Suicides, Infanticide, Cinema, Quackery, Demagogy, Strikes, Lockouts, Revolutions, Putsches, Colonization, Electric Chairs, Guillotines, Sabotage, Floods, Famine, Disease, Gangsters, Money Barons, Horse Racing, Fashion Shows, Poodle Dogs, Chow Dogs, Siamese Cats, Condoms, Peccaries, Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Insanity, Neuroses, Etc., Etc.

To Know Paris Is To Know A Great Deal.

The World Dies Over And Over Again, But The Skeleton Always Gets Up And Walks.

I Had To Learn To Think, Feel, And See In A Totally New Fashion, In An Uneducated Way, In My Own Way, Which Is The Hardest Thing In The World. I Had To Throw Myself Into The Current, Knowing That I Would Probably Sink.

Hell Is Probably Quite Similar To Most Paris Bistros ... A Bit Overheated, Somewhat Too Crowded, And A Little Too Noisy For My Tastes. The Waiters Will Surely Treat You Rudely And The Cashiers Will Always Add A Few Extra Francs To Your Bill But ... And This Is The Important Part ... The Food Will Be Marvelous.

Those Interested In Celestial Navigation Are Advised To First Obtain A Rudimentary Knowledge Of Integral Calculus, Phlebotomy, Astral Physics And Related Subjects. The Use Of Liquor Is Strictly Forbidden On Interplanetary Flights.

I Wanted To Feel The Blood Running Back Into My Veins, Even At The Cost Of Annihilation. I Wanted To Shake The Stone And Light Out Of My System. I Wanted The Dark Fecundity Of Nature, The Deep Well Of The Womb, Silence, Or Else The Lapping Of The Black Waters Of Death. I Wanted To Be That Night Which The Remorseless Eye Illuminated, A Night Diapered With Stars And Trailing Comets. To Be Of Night So Frighteningly Silent, So Utterly Incomprehensible And Eloquent At The Same Time. Never More To Speak Or To Listen Or To Think.

I Believe In Saying The Truth, Coming Out With It Cold, Shocking If Necessary, Not Disguising It.

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.

We Are Swimming On The Face Of Time And All Else Has Drowned, Is Drowning, Or Will Drown.

Side By Side With The Human Race There Runs Another Race Of Beings, The Inhuman Ones, The Race Of Artists Who, Goaded By Unknown Impulses, Take The Lifeless Mass Of Humanity And By The Fever And Ferment With Which They Imbue It Turn This Soggy Dough Into Bread And The Bread Into Wine And The Wine Into Song.

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 Smile Was So Painfully Swift And Fleeting That It Was Like The Flash Of A Knife.

If Any Man Dared To Translate All That Is In His Heart, To Put Down What Is Really His Experience, What Is Truly His Truth, I Think Then The World Would Go To Smash, That It Would Be Blown To Smithereens And No God, No Accident, No Will Could Ever Again Assemble The Pieces, The Atoms, The Indestructible Elements That Have Gone To Make Up The World.

Surely Every One Realizes, At Some Point Along The Way, That He Is Capable Of Living A Far Better Life Than The One He Has Chosen.

Paint What You Like And Die Happy

I Want To Undress You, Vulgarize You A Bit.

All Growth Is A Leap In The Dark.

Next To Love Friendship, In My Opinion, Is The Most Valuable Thing Life Has To Offer.

Friendship Love

The Best Stories I Have Heard Were Pointless, The Best Books Those Whose Plot I Can Never Remember, The Best Individuals Those Whom I Never Get Anywhere With. Though It Has Been Practised On Me Time And Again I Never Cease To Marvel How It Happens That With Certain Individuals Whom I Know, Within A Few Minutes After Greeting Them We Are Embarked On An Endless Voyage Comparable In Feeling And Trajectory Only To The Deep Middle Dream Which The Practised Dreamer Slips Into Like A Bone Slips Into Its Sockets

Madness Is Tonic And Invigorating. It Makes The Sane More Sane. The Only Ones Who Are Unable To Profit By It Are The Insane.

When You Meet The Man [brassai] You See At Once That He Is Equipped With No Ordinary Eyes. And The Sharpness Of Vision And Depth Of Insight Are Revealed In Brassai's Lifelong Photographic Exploration Of Paris - Its People, Places, And Things.

My One Thought Is To Get Out Of New York, To Experience Something Genuinely American.

The Cradles Of Civilization Are The Putrid Sinks Of The World.

The American White Man (not To Speak Of The Indian, The Negro, The Mexican) Hasn't A Ghost Of A Chance. If He Has Any Talent He's Doomed To Have It Crushed One Way Or Another. The American Way Is To Seduce A Man By Bribery And Make A Prostitute Of Him. Or Else To Ignore Him, Starve Him Into Submission And Make A Hack Of Him.

Sex Is One Of The Nine Reasons For Reincarnation... The Other Eight Are Unimportant.

If Men Cease To Believe That They Will One Day Become Gods Then They Will Surely Become Worms.

Giving And Receiving Are At Bottom One Thing, Dependent On Whether One Lives Open Or Closed. Living Openly One Becomes A Medium, A Transmitter; Living Thus, As A River, One Experiences Life To The Full, Flows Along With The Current Of Life, And Dies In Order To Live Again As An Ocean.

One Has To Be A Lowbrow, A Bit Of A Murderer, To Be A Politician, Ready And Willing To See People Sacrificed, Slaughtered, For The Sake Of An Idea, Whether A Good One Or A Bad One.

You Can Travel Fifty Thousand Miles In America Without Once Tasting A Piece Of Good Bread.

When You Know What Men Are Capable Of You Marvel Neither At Their Sublimity Nor Their Baseness. There Are No Limits In Either Direction Apparently.

No, There's Fifteen Francs Somewhere, Which Nobody Gives A Damn About Anymore And Which Nobody Is Going To Get In The End Anyhow, But The Fifteen Francs Is Like The Primal Cause Of Things And Rather Than Listen To One's Own Voice, Rather Than Walk Out On The Primal Cause, One Surrenders To The Situation, One Goes On Butchering And Butchering And The More Cowardly One Feels The More Heroically Does He Behave, Until A Day When The Bottom Drops Out And Suddenly All The Guns Are Silenced And The Stretcher-bearers Pick Up The Maimed And Bleeding Heroes And Pin Medals On Their Chest.

All My Calvaries Were Rosy Crucifixions, Pseudo-tragedies To Keep The Fires Of Hell Burning Brightly For The Real Sinners Who Are In Danger Of Being Forgotten.

Hitler Is No Worse, Nay Better, In My Opinion, Than The Other Lugs. He Makes The German Mistake Of Being Tactless, That's All.

What Have We To Offer The World Beside The Superabundant Loot Which We Recklessly Plunder From The Earth Under The Maniacal Delusion That This Insane Activity Represents Progress And Enlightenment?

Whoever Uses The Spirit That Is In Him Creatively Is An Artist. To Make Living Itself An Art, That Is The Goal.

I Have Made A Silent Compact With Myself Not To Change A Line Of What I Write. I Am Not Interested In Perfecting My Thoughts, Nor My Actions.

We Are All Guilty Of Crime The Great Crime Of Not Living Life To The Full. But We Are All Potentially Free. We Can Stop Thinking Of What We Have Failed To Do And Do Whatever Lies Within Our Power. What Those Powers That Are In Us May Be No One Has Truly Dared To Imagine. That They Are Infinite We Will Realize The Day We Admit To Ourselves That Imagination Is Everything. Imagination Is The Voice Of Daring.

My Hunger And Curiosity Drive Me Forward In All Directions At Once.

Writing, Like Life Itself, Is A Voyage Of Discovery.

The Most Difficult Thing To Adjust To, Apparently, Is Peace And Contentment.

Contentment And Peace

No One Asks You To Throw Mozart Out Of The Window. Keep Mozart. Cherish Him. Keep Moses Too, And Buddha And Lao Tzu And Christ. Keep Them In Your Heart. But Make Room For The Others, The Coming Ones, The Ones Who Are Already Scratching On The Window-panes.

There Is Nothing In Itself Which Is Wrong Or Evil Not Even Murder.

A Book Lying Idle On A Shelf Is Wasted Ammunition.

I Am Of The Order Whose Purpose Is Not To Teach The World A Lesson But To Explain That School Is Over.

True Strength Lies In Submission Which Permits One To Dedicate His Life, Through Devotion, To Something Beyond Himself.

The Only Peace, The Only Security, Is In Fulfillment.

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