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Life, As We All Know, Is Conflict, And Man, Being Part Of Life, Is Himself An Expression Of Conflict. If He Recognizes The Fact And Accepts It, He Is Apt, Despite The Conflict, To Know Peace And To Enjoy It. But To Arrive At This End, Which Is Only A Beginning (for We Haven’t Begun To Live Yet!), A Man Has Got To Learn The Doctrine Of Acceptance, That Is, Of Unconditional Surrender, Which Is Love.

-Henry Miller

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Life, As We All

Henry Miller

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Life, As We All Know, Is Conflict, And Man, Being Part Of Life, Is Himself An Expression Of Conflict. If He Recognizes The Fact And Accepts It, He Is Apt, Despite The Conflict, To Know Peace And To Enjoy It. But To Arrive At This End, Which Is Only A Beginning (for We Haven’t Begun To Live Yet!), A Man Has Got To Learn The Doctrine Of Acceptance, That Is, Of Unconditional Surrender, Which Is Love.

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The Sordid Qualities Imputed To The Enemy Are Always Those Which We Recognize As Our Own And Therefore Rise To Slay, Because Only Through Projection Do We Realize The Enormity And Horror Of Them.

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.

One Of The Reasons Why So Few Of Us Ever Act, Instead Of React, Is Because We Are Continually Stifling Our Deepest Impulses.

A Book Lying Idle On A Shelf Is Wasted Ammunition. Like Money, Books Must Be Kept In Constant Circulation. Lend And Borrow To The Maximum.

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

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.

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.

In Expanding The Field Of Knowledge We But Increase The Horizon Of Ignorance.

The Purpose Of Life Is To Remember.

The Waking Mind, You See, Is The Least Serviceable In The Arts.

I Used To Think A Bird Couldn't Fly If Its Wings Got Wet.

Everything Hinges On How You Look At Things

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

Better To Separate Than Never To Marry.

It Is Silly To Go On Pretending That Under The Skin We Are Brothers. The Truth Is More Likely That Under The Skin We Are All Cannibals, Assassins, Traitors, Liars And Hypocrites.

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.

All Growth Is A Leap In The Dark, A Spontaneous Unpremeditated Act Without Benefit Of Experience.

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.

Who Hates The Jews More Than The Jew?

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.

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.

Whatever Needs To Be Maintained Through Force Is Doomed.

A New World Is Not Made Simply By Trying To Forget The Old. A New World Is Made With A New Spirit, With New Values. Our World May Have Begun That Way, But Today It Is Caricature. Our World Is A World Of Things. What We Dread Most, In The Face Of The Impending Debacle, Is That We Shall Be Obliged To Give Up Our Gewgaws, Our Gadgets, All The Little Comforts That Have Made Us So Uncomfortable. We Are Not Peaceful Souls; We Are Smug, Timid, Queasy And Quaky.

I Believe That Today More Than Ever A Book Should Be Sought After Even If It Has Only One Great Page In It. We Must Search For Fragments, Splinters, Toenails, Anything That Has Ore In It, Anything That Is Capable Of Resuscitating The Body And The Soul.

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

What I Want Is To Open Up. I Want To Know What's Inside Me. I Want Everybody To Open Up. I'm Like An Imbecile With A Can Opener In His Hand, Wondering Where To Begin-- To Open Up The Earth. I Know That Underneath The Mess Everything Is Marvelous. I'm Sure Of It.

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

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.

Why Change The World? Change Worlds!

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 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.

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

A World Without Hope, But No Despair

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.

Each Man Has His Own Way Of Being Himself And Of Saying It So Ultimately That He Can't Be Denied.

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.

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.

If You Are Well Off And Can Afford To Spend Ten Or Twenty-five Dollars A Day To Hire Some Patient Soul To Listen To Your Troubles You Can Be Readjusted To The Crazy Scheme Of Things And Spare Yourself The Humiliation Of Becoming A Christian Scientist. You Can Have Your Ego Trimmed Or Removed, As You Wish, Just Like A Wart Or Bunion.

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

Everything Remains Unsettled Forever, Depend On It

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

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.

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

There Is No Salvation In Becoming Adapted To A World Which Is Crazy.

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.

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

We Must Not Just Be In The World And Above The World, But Also Of The World. To Love It For What It Is... Is The Only Task. Avoid It And You Are Lost. Lose Yourself In It, And You Are Free.

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

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

If One Believes, Then Miracles Occur.

'life', Said Emerson, "consists In What A Man Is Thinking All Day." If That Be So, Then My Life Is Nothing But A Big Intestine.

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

He Saw That Science Had Become As Great A Hoax As Religion, That Nationalism Was A Farce, Patriotism A Fraud, Education A Form Of Leprosy, And That Morals Were For Cannibals

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

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.

Music Is The Can-opener Of The Soul.

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

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.

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.

It Was Only In My Forties That I Started Feeling Young.

Life, As It Is Called, Is For Most Of Us One Long Postponement.

Procrastination

Life Is 440 Horsepower In A 2-cylinder Engine.

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

Writing Is Its Own Reward.

I Want To Undress You, Vulgarize You A Bit.

An Artist Earns The Right To Call Himself A Creator Only When He Admits To Himself That He Is But An Instrument.

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

Men Are Not Suffering From The Lack Of Good Literature, Good Art, Good Theatre, Good Music, But From That Which Has Made It Impossible For These To Become Manifest. In Short, They Are Suffering From The Silent Shameful Conspiracy (the More Shameful Since It Is Unacknowledged) Which Has Bound Them Together As Enemies Of Art And Artists.

I Am Living At The Villa Borghese. There Is Not A Crumb Of Dirt Anywhere, Nor A Chair Misplaced. We Are All Alone Here And We Are Dead.

We Should Not Stop To Reflect, Compare, Analyze, Possess, But Flow On And Through, Endlessly, Like Music.

Voyages Are Accomplished Inwardly.

But You Can’t Put Fight Into A Man’s Guts If He Hasn’t Any Fight In Him. There Are Some Of Us So Cowardly That You Can’t Ever Make Heroes Of Us, Not Even If You Frighten Us To Death. We Know Too Much, Maybe. There Are Some Of Us Who Don’t Live In The Moment, Who Live A Little Ahead, Or A Little Behind.

Everyman, When He Gets Quiet, When He Becomes Desperately Honest With Himself, Is Capable Of Uttering Profound Truths.

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

There's Something Perverse About Women...they're All Masochists At Heart.

Tropic Of Cancer

Cluster Together Like Stars!

What Seems Nasty, Painful, Evil Can Become A Source Of Beauty, Joy, And Strength, If Faced With An Open Mind.

Art Is Only A Means To Life, The Life More Abundant. It Merely Points The Way.

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

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

I Don't Know Whether You've Ever Had A Woman Eat An Apple While You Were Doing It. Well, You Can Imagine How That Affects You.

If The Poet Can No Longer Speak For Society, But Only For Himself, Then We Are At The Last Ditch.

The Legal System Is Often A Mystery, And We, Its Priests, Preside Over Rituals Baffling To Everyday Citizens.

Once I Thought That To Be Human Was The Highest Aim A Man Could Have, But I See Now That It Was Meant To Destroy Me. To-day I Am Proud To Say That I Am Inhuman, That I Belong Not To Men And Governments, That I Have Nothing To Do With Creeds And Principles. I Have Nothing To Do With The Creaking Machinery Of Humanity - I Belong To The Earth!

The World Is The Mirror Of Myself Dying.

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.

People Used To Envy Me My Inspiration. I Hate Inspiration. It Takes You Over Completely. I Could Never Wait Until It Passed And I Got Rid Of It.

Let Me Be, Was All I Wanted. Be What I Am, No Matter How I Am.

...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.

I See Myself Forever And Ever As The Ridiculous Man, The Lonely Soul, The Wanderer, The Restless Frustrated Artist, The Man In Love With Love, Always In Search Of The Absolute, Always Seeking The Unattainable

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.

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.

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

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.

It Is No Accident That Propels People Like Us To Paris.

You Are The Only Woman Who Has A Sense Of Gaiety, A Wise Tolerance - No More, You Seem To Urge Me To Betray You. I Love You For That. [...] I Don't Know What To Expect Of You, But It Is Something In The Way Of A Miracle. I Am Going To Demand Everything Of You - Even The Impossible, Because You Encourage It. You Are Really Strong. I Even Like Your Deceit, Your Treachery. It Seems Aristocratic To Me.

All My Good Reading, You Might Say, Was Done In The Toilet.

I Took Care Of My Wheel As One Would Look After A Rolls Royce. If It Needed Repairs I Always Brought It To The Same Shop On Myrtle Avenue Run By A Negro Named Ed Perry. He Handled The Bike With Kid Gloves, You Might Say. He Would Always See To It That Neither Front Nor Back Wheel Wobbled. Often He Would Do A Job For Me Without Pay, Because, As He Put It, He Never Saw A Man So In Love With His Bike As I Was.

My Understanding Of The Meaning Of A Book Is That The Book Itself Disappears From Sight, That It Is Chewed Alive, Digested And Incorporated Into The System As Flesh And Blood Which In Turn Creates New Spirit And Reshapes The World.

Jump Off. You Are A Protected Individual. Do Not Fear.

Instead Of Asking 'how Much Damage Will The Work In Question Bring About?' Why Not Ask 'how Much Good? How Much Joy?'

Your Whole Past Is Like A Long Sleep Which Would Have Been Forgotten Had There Been No Memory, But Remembrance Is There In The Blood And The Blood Is Like An Ocean In Which Everything Is Washed Away But That Which Is New And More Substantial Even Than Life - Reality.

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

Friendship Love

France May One Day Exist No More, But The Dordogne Will Live On Just As Dreams Live On And Nourish The Souls Of Men.

The World Is Two Thirds Spaghetti And Meatballs, One Third Syphilitic Chancre.

I Couldn't Allow Myself To Think About Her Very Long; If I Had I Would Have Jumped Off The Bridge. It's Strange. I Had Become So Reconciled To This Life Without Her, And Yet If I Thought About Her Only For A Minute It Was Enough To Pierce The Bone And Marrow Of My Contentment And Shove Me Back Again Into The Agonizing Gutter Of My Wretched Past.

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.

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.

What Does It Matter How One Comes By The Truth So Long As One Pounces Upon It And Lives By It?

The One Thing We Can Never Get Enough Of Is Love. And The One Thing We Never Give Enough Is Love.

Don't Look For Miracles. You Yourself Are The Miracle.

A Man Of Good Will With A Little Effort And Belief In His Own Powers Can Enjoy A Deep, Tranquil, Rich Life - Provided He Go His Own Way.... To Live One's Own Life Is Still The Best Way Of Life, Always Was And Always Will Be.

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

What Is An Artist? He's A Man Who Has Antennae, Who Knows How To Hook Up To The Currents Which Are In Atmosphere, In The Cosmos.

Were There A Christian So Faithful To His God As I Was To Her We Would All Be Jesus Christ Today.

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.

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.

Work On One Thing At A Time Until Finished.

One Thing At A Time

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.

Develop An Interest In Life As You See It.

Interest In Life

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.

To Know Paris Is To Know A Great Deal.

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

I Felt Free And Chained At The Same Time - Like One Feels Just Before Election, When All The Crooks Have Been Nominated And You Are Beseeched To Vote For The Right Man.

Every Man, When He Gets Quiet, When He Becomes Desperately Honest With Himself, Is Capable Of Uttering Profound Truths. We All Derive From The Same Source. There Is No Mystery About The Origin Of Things. 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.

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.

Life Moves On, Whether We Act As Cowards Or Heroes.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Have No Money, No Resources, No Hopes. I Am The Happiest Man Alive.

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

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.

I Am Positively Against All This Crap Which Is Carried On First In The Name Of This Thing, Then In The Name Of That. I Believe Only In What Is Active, Immediate, And Personal.

If There Is To Be Any Peace It Will Come Through Being, Not Having.

Life Has To Be Given A Meaning Because Of The Obvious Fact That It Has No Meaning.

Law Of Attraction

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.

You Make Me Tremendously Happy To Hold Me Undivided - To Let Me Be The Artist, As It Were, And Yet Not Forgo The Man, The Animal, The Hungry, Insatiable Lover. No Woman Has Ever Granted Me All The Privileges I Need - And You, Why You Sing Out So Blithely, So Boldly, With A Laugh Even - Yes, You Invite Me To Go Ahead, Be Myself, Benture Anything. I Adore You For That. That Is Where You Are Truly Regal, A Woman Extraordinary. What A Woman You Are! I Laugh To Myself Now When I Think Of You. I Have No Fear Of Your Femaleness.

Do Not Be Duped By Little Duties. Do Not Be A Chore Man All Your Days.

Somewhere Along The Way One Discovers That What One Has To Tell Is Not Nearly So Important As The Telling Itself.

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

The City Is Loveliest When The Sweet Death Racket Begins. Her Own Life Lived In Defiance Of Nature, Her Electricity, Her Frigidaires, Her Soundproof Walls, The Glint Of Lacquered Nails, The Plumes That Wave Across The Corrugated Sky. Here In The Coffin Depths Grow The Everlasting Flowers Sent By Telegraph.

I Demanded A Realm In Which I Should Be Both Master And Slave At The Same Time: The World Of Art Is The Only Such Realm.

To The Man Whose Senses Are Alive And Alert There Is Not Even The Need To Stir From One's Threshold.

I Too Love Everything That Flows: Rivers, Sewers, Lava, Semen, Blood, Bile, Words, Sentences. I Love The Amniotic Fluid When It Spills Out Of The Bag. I Love The Kidney With It's Painful Gall-stones, It's Gravel And What-not; I Love The Urine That Pours Out Scalding And The Clap That Runs Endlessly; I Love The Words Of Hysterics And The Sentences That Flow On Like Dysentery And Mirror All The Sick Images Of The Soul.

The Wallpaper With Which The Men Of Science Have Covered The World Of Reality Is Falling To Tatters. The Grand Whorehouse Which They Have Made Of Life Requires No Decoration; It Is Essential That Only The Drains Function Adequately. Beauty, That Feline Beauty That Has Us By The Balls In America, Is Finished.

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.

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.

It Is Now The Fall Of My Second Year In Paris. I Was Sent Here For A Reason I Have Not Yet Been Able To Fathom. I Have No Money, No Resources, No Hopes. I Am The Happiest Man Alive. A Year Ago, Six Months Ago, I Thought I Was An Artist. I No Longer Think About It. I Am. There Are No More Books To Be Written, Thank God.

I'm An Egotist, But I'm Not Selfish. There's A Difference. I'm A Neurotic, I Guess. I Can't Stop Thinking About Myself. It Isn't That I Think Myself So Important. I Simply Can't Think About Anything Else, That's All.

Falling In Love

Without A Coca-cola Life Is Unthinkable.

There Is Something Else To Be Said About This Immediate, Spontaneous Way Of Working, And That Is This: In Such Moments, One Is Playing At The Game Of Creation.

Life, As We All Know, Is Conflict, And Man, Being Part Of Life, Is Himself An Expression Of Conflict. If He Recognizes The Fact And Accepts It, He Is Apt, Despite The Conflict, To Know Peace And To Enjoy It. But To Arrive At This End, Which Is Only A Beginning (for We Haven’t Begun To Live Yet!), A Man Has Got To Learn The Doctrine Of Acceptance, That Is, Of Unconditional Surrender, Which Is Love.

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.

The Word Which Gives The Key To The National Vice Is Waste. And People Who Are Wasteful Are Not Wise, Neither Can They Remain Young And Vigorous. In Order To Transmute Energy To Higher And More Subtle Levels One Must First Conserve It.

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

The Aim Of Life Is To Live, And To Live Means To Be Aware, Joyously, Drunkenly, Serenely, Divinely Aware.

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.

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

As Far As History Goes I Am Dead. If There Is Something Beyond I Shall Have To Bounce Back. I Have Found God, But He Is Insufficient. I Am Only Spiritually Dead. Physically I Am Alive. Morally I Am Free. The World Which I Have Departed Is A Menagerie.

You Start Out With The Sublime And You End Up In An Alley Jerking Away For Dear Life.

The Piano Bar Is The Gateway To The Halls Of Masturbation.

There Are Lone Figures Armed Only With Ideas, Sometimes With Just One Idea, Who Blast Away Whole Epochs In Which We Are Enwrapped Like Mummies. Some Are Powerful Enough To Resurrect The Dead. Some Steal On Us Unawares And Put A Spell Over Us Which It Takes Centuries To Throw Off. Some Put A Curse On Us, For Our St Idity And Inertia, And Then It Seems As If God Himself Were Unable To Lift It.

When I Think Of New York I Have A Very Different Feeling. New York Makes Even A Rich Man Feel His Unimportance. New York Is Cold, Glittering, Malign. The Buildings Dominate. There Is A Sort Of Atomic Frenzy To The Activity Going On; The More Furious The Pace, The More Diminished The Spirit. A Constant Ferment, But It Might Just As Well Be Going On In A Test Tube. Nobody Knows What It's All About. Nobody Directs The Energy. Stupendous. Bizarre, Baffling. A Tremendous Reactive Urge, But Absolutely Uncoordinated.

To Imagine A New World Is To Live It Daily, Each Thought, Each Glance, Each Step, Each Gesture, Killing And Recreating, Death Always A Step In Advance. To Spit On The Past Is Not Enough. To Proclaim The Future Is Not Enough. One Must Act As If The Past Were Dead And The Future Unrealizable.

There Are Only Three Things To Be Done With A Woman. You Can Love Her, Suffer For Her, Or Turn Her Into Literature.

I'm A Bit Retarded, Like Most Americans.

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

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.

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

The Only Difference Between The Adamic Man And The Man Of Today Is That The One Was Born To Paradise And The Other Has To Create It.

We Create Our Fate Everyday

New York! The White Prisons, The Sidewalks Swarming With Maggots, The Breadlines, The Opium Joints That Are Built Like Palaces, The Kikes That Are There, The Lepers, The Thugs, And Above All, The Ennui, The Monotony Of Faces, Streets, Legs, Houses, Skyscrapers, Meals, Posters, Jobs, Crimes, Loves... A Whole City Erected Over A Hollow Pit Of Nothingness. Meaningless. Absolute Meaningless.

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. The First Quivering Word He Puts To Paper Is The Word Of The Wounded Angel: Pain.

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

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

There Will Be More Calamities, More Death, More Despair. Not The Slightest Indication Of A Change Anywhere. The Cancer Of Our Time Is Eating Us Away. Our Heroes Have Killed Themselves, Or Are Killing Themselves.

Understanding Is Not A Piercing Of The Mystery, But An Acceptance Of It, A Living Blissfully With It, In It, Through And By It.

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

When You Travel Often, You Will Be Addicted To It Forever.

To Walk In Money Through The Night Crowd, Protected By Money, Lulled By Money, Dulled By Money, The Crowd Itself A Money, The Breath Money, No Least Single Object Anywhere That Is Not Money. Money, Money Everywhere And Still Not Enough! And Then No Money, Or A Little Money, Or Less Money, Or More Money But Money Always Money. And If You Have Money, Or You Don't Have Money, It Is The Money That Counts, And Money Makes Money, But What Makes Money Make Money?

At The Bottom Of Every Frozen Heart There Is A Drop Or Two Of Love―just Enough To Feed The Birds.

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.

Either You Take In Believing In Miracles Or You Stand Still Like The Hummingbird.

The Stabbing Horror Of Life Is Not Contained In Calamities And Disasters, Because These Things Wake One Up And One Gets Very Familiar And Intimate With Them And Finally They Become Tame Again. No, It Is More Like Being In A Hotel Room In Hoboken Let Us Say, And Just Enough Money In One's Pocket For Another Meal.

And What Is The Potential Man, After All? Is He Not The Sum Of All That Is Human? Divine, In Other Words?

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.

Paint What You Like And Die Happy

An Artist Is Always Alone - If He Is An Artist. No, What The Artist Needs Is Loneliness.

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.

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

I Don't Think We Should Read For Instruction But To Give Our Souls A Chance To Luxuriate.

She May Be Lying In Bed Reading A Book, She May Be Making Love With A Prize Fighter, Or She May Be Running Like Mad Through A Field Of Stubble, One Shoe One, One Shoe Off, A Man Named Corn Cob Pursuing Her Hotly. Wherever She Is I Am Standing In Complete Darkness; Her Absence Blots Me Out.

The Only Law Which Is Really Lived Up To Wholeheartedly And With A Vengeance Is The Law Of Conformity.

The Best Technique Is None At All.

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

I Thought, When I Came Upon Her, That I Was Seizing Hold Of Life... Instead I Lost Hold Of Life Completely. I Reached Out For Something To Attach Myself To - And I Found Nothing. But In Reaching Out, In The Effort To Grasp, To Attach Myself, Left High And Dry As I Was, I Nevertheless Found Something I Had Not Looked For - Myself.

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.

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.

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