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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.

-Henry Miller

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One Thing Is Certain,

Henry Miller

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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.

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

With This Book In My Hands, Reading Aloud To My Friends, Questioning Them, Explaining To Them, I Was Made Clearly To Understand That I Had No Friends, That I Was Alone In The World. Because In Not Understanding The Meaning Of The Words, Neither I Nor My Friends, One Thing Became Very Clear And That Was That There Were Ways Of Not Understanding And That The Difference Between The Non-understanding Of One Individual And The Non-understanding Of Another Created A World Of Terra Firma Even More Solid Than Differences Of Understanding.

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.

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

Keep Your Exclamation Points Under Control!

Exclamation Points

Without A Coca-cola Life Is Unthinkable.

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

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.

Develop An Interest In Life As You See It.

Interest In Life

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I Haven't Any Allegiance, Any Responsibilities, Any Hatreds, Any Worries, Any Prejudices, Any Passion. I'm Neither For Nor Against. I'm A Neutral.

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

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

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

It Does Me Good To Write A Letter Which Is Not A Response To A Demand, A Gratuitous Letter, So To Speak, Which Has Accumulated In Me Like The Waters Of A Reservoir.

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

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

The World Is The Mirror Of Myself Dying.

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

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.

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.

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

It Is Almost Banal To Say So Yet It Needs To Be Stressed Continually: All Is Creation, All Is Change, All Is Flux, All Is Metamorphosis.

The More I Wrote, The More I Became A Human Being. The Writing May Have Seemed Monstrous (to Some) For It Was A Violation, But I Became A More Human Individual Because Of It. I Was Getting The Poison Out Of My System.

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.

...the Wise Man Knows That Every Experience Is To Be Viewed As A Blessing.

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.

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

Until We Lose Ourselves There Is No Hope Of Finding Ourselves.

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.

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

Tropic Of Cancer

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.

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.

I'd Rather Sit Down And Write A Letter Than Call Someone Up. I Hate The Telephone.

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

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.

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.

The Englishman, Be It Noted, Seldom Resorts To Violence; When He Is Sufficiently Goaded He Simply Opens Up, Like The Oyster, And Devours His Adversary.

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.

Every Man Has His Own Destiny: The Only Imperative Is To Follow It, To Accept It, No Matter Where It Leads Him.

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

The Artist Is The Opposite Of The Politically Minded Individual, The Opposite Of The Reformer, The Opposite Of The Idealist. The Artist Does Not Tinker With The Universe, He Recreates It Out Of His Own Experience And Understanding Of Life.

The Study Of Crime Begins With The Knowledge Of Oneself. All That You Despise, All That You Loathe, All That You Reject, All That You Condemn And Seek To Convert By Punishment Springs From You.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Cluster Together Like Stars!

Everybody Says Sex Is Obscene. The Only True Obscenity Is War.

I Have Found God, But He Is Insufficient.

'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.

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

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.

The Word Civilization To My Mind Is Coupled With Death. When I Use The Word, I See Civilization As A Crippling, Thwarting Thing, A Stultifying Thing. For Me It Was Always So. I Don't Believe In The Golden Ages, You See... Civilization Is The Arteriosclerosis Of Culture.

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

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

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

Day By Day. No Yesterdays And No Tomorrows. The Barometer Never Changes, The Flag Is Always At Half-mast.

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

When Spring Comes To Paris The Humblest Mortal Alive Must Feel That He Dwells In Paradise.

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.

They Were Painfully Clean. But Inwardly They Stank. Never Once Had They Opened The Door Which Leads To The Soul; Never Once Did They Dream Of Taking A Blind Leap Into The Dark.

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

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

Contentment And Peace

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.

Work On One Thing At A Time Until Finished.

One Thing At A Time

Writing Is Its Own Reward.

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

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.

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

Plots And Character Don't Make Life. Life Is Here And Now, Anytime You Say The Word, Anytime You Let Her Rip.

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

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.

Even The Idiot May Have A Message For Us

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.

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.

I Am A Free Man―and I Need My Freedom. 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. What Do You Want Of Me? When I Have Something To Say, I Put It In Print. When I Have Something To Give, I Give It. Your Prying Curiosity Turns My Stomach! Your Compliments Humiliate Me! Your Tea Poisons Me! I Owe Nothing To Any One. I Would Be Responsible To God Alone―if He Existed!

When I Realize That She Is Gone, Perhaps Gone Forever, A Great Void Opens Up And I Feel That I Am Falling, Falling, Falling Into Deep, Black Space. And This Is Worse Than Tears, Deeper Than Regret Or Pain Or Sorrow, It Is The Abyss Into Which Satan Was Plunged. There Is No Climbing Back, No Ray Of Light, No Sound Of Human Voice Or Human Touch Of Hand.

The Poet Speaks Adequately Only When He Speaks Somewhat Wildly... Not With Intellect Alone, But With Intellect Inebriated By Nectar.

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

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.

All The Lies And Evasions By Which Man Has Nourished Himself Civilization, In A Word Is The Fruits Of The Creative Artist. It Is The Creative Nature Of Man Which Has Refused To Let Him Lapse Back Into That Unconscious Unity With Life Which Characterizes The Animal World From Which He Made His Escape.

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

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

As Long As That Spark Of Passion Is Missing There Is No Human Significance In The Performance.

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

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 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.

Life Is 440 Horsepower In A 2-cylinder Engine.

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.

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.

What I Really Hoped For, No Doubt, Was To Come Upon One Of Those Lives Which Begin Nowhere, Which Lead Us Through Marshes And Salt Flats, Trickling Away, Seemingly Without Plan, Purpose Or Goal, And Suddenly Emerge, Gushing Like Geysers, And Never Cease Gushing, Even In Death.

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.

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 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.

Leave Out The Parts That Readers Tend To Skip.

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

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

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

It Was Here In Big Sur That I First Learned To Say 'amen.'

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

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.

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.

Think Only What Is Right There, What Is Right Under Your Nose To Do. It's Such A Simple Thing - That's Why People Can't Do It.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Through Endless Night The Earth Whirls Toward A Creation Unknown.

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?

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. . . .

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

Everyday We Slaughter Our Finest Impulses. That Is Why We Get A Heartache When We Read The Lines Written By The Hand Of A Master And Recognize Them As Our Own, As The Tender Shoots Which We Stifled Because We Lacked The Faith To Believe In Our Own Powers, Our Own Criterion Of Truth And Beauty. Everyman, When He Gets Quiet, When He Becomes Desperately Honest With Himself, Is Capable Of Uttering Profound Truths.

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.

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.

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

The Enchanting, And Sometimes Terrifying, Thing Is That The World Can Be So Many Things To So Many Different Souls. That It Can Be, And Is, All These Things At Once And The Same Time.

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

New York Has A Trip-hammer Vitality Which Drives You Insane With Restlessness If You Have No Inner Stabilizer.

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.

For The Artist To Attach Himself To His Work, Or Identify Himself With It, Is Suicidal.

The City Grows Like A Cancer; I Must Grow Like A Sun. The City Eats Deeper And Deeper Into The Red; It Is An Insatiable White Louse Which Must Die Eventually Of Inanition. I Am Going To Starve The White Louse Which Is Eating Me Up. I Am Going To Die As A City In Order To Become Again A Man. Therefore I Close My Ears, My Eyes, My Mouth.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Whatever Needs To Be Maintained Through Force Is Doomed.

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.

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

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

Man Has Demonstrated That He Is Master Of Everything - Except His Own Nature.

And For That One Moment Of Freedom You Have To Listen To All That Love Crap... It Drive Me Nuts Sometimes... I Want To Kick Them Out Immediately... I Do Now And Then. But That Doesn't Keep Them Away. They Like It, In Fact. The Less You Notice Them The More They Chase After You. There's Something Perverse About Women... They're All Masochists At Heart.

Great God! What Have I Turned Into? What Right Have You People To Clutter Up My Life, Steal My Time, Probe My Soul, Suckle My Thoughts, Have Me For Your Companion, Confidant, And Information Bureau? What Do You Take Me For? Am I An Entertainer On Salary, Required Every Evening To Play An Intellectual Farce Under Your Stupid Noses? Am I A Slave, Bought And Paid For, To Crawl On My Belly In Front Of You Idlers And Lay At Your Feet All That I Do And All That I Know?

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

I Wanted To Die; I Wanted To Surrender Because I Saw No Sense In Struggling. I Felt That Nothing Would Be Proved, Substantiated, Added Or Subtracted By Continuing An Existence Which I Had Not Asked For.

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.

To Love! To Surrender Absolutely, To Prostrate Oneself Before The Divine Image, To Die A Thousand Imaginary Deaths, To Annihilate Every Trace Of Self, To Find The Whole Universe Embodied And Enshrined In The Living Image Of Another! Adolescent, We Say. Rot! This Is The Germ Of The Future Life, The Seed Which We Hide Away, Which We Bury Deep Within Us, Which We Smother And Stifle And Do Our Utmost To Destroy As We Advance From One Experience To Another And Flutter And Flounder And Lose Our 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.

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

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

It Is With The Soul That We Grasp The Essence Of Another Human Being, Not With The Mind, Nor Even With The Heart.

Writing, Like Life Itself, Is A Voyage Of Discovery. The Adventure Is A Metaphysical One: It Is A Way Of Approaching Life Indirectly, Of Acquiring A Total Rather Than A Partial View Of The Universe. The Writer Lives Between The Upper And Lower Worlds: He Takes The Path In Order Eventually To Become The Path Himself.

The Purpose Of Life Is To Remember.

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

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!

Fame Is An Illusive Thing - Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. The Fickle, Shallow Mob Raises Its Heroes To The Pinnacle Of Approval Today And Hurls Them Into Oblivion Tomorrow At The Slightest Whim; Cheers Today, Hisses Tomorrow; Utter Forgetfulness In A Few Months.

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

Friendship Love

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is The Happiness Which Comes From Creative Effort. The Joy Of Dreaming, Creating, Building, Whether In Painting A Picture, Writing An Epic, Singing A Song, Composing A Symphony, Devising New Invention, Creating A Vast Industry.

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

Better To Separate Than Never To Marry.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Have You Ever Seen A Genius Out There Looking For A Job? It's The Saddest Thing In The World. No One Will Hire Him. There Is Only One Place Where He Is Always Welcome- At The Bottom.

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

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.

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.

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.

Everything Remains Unsettled Forever, Depend On It

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.

The Prisoner Is Not The One Who Has Commited A Crime, But The One Who Clings To His Crime And Lives It Over And Over.

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.

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

The Life Of A Creator Is Not The Only Life Nor Perhaps The Most Interesting Which A Man Leads. There Is A Time For Play And A Time For Work, A Time For Creation And A Time For Lying Fallow. And There Is A Time, Glorious Too In Its Own Way, When One Scarcely Exists, When One Is A Complete Void. I Mean-when Boredom Seems The Very Stuff Of Life.

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

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.

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

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

Voyages Are Accomplished Inwardly.

The Concert Is A Polite Form Of Self Induced Torture.

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.

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.

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

People Are Like Lice - They Get Under Your Skin And Bury Themselves There. You Scratch And Scratch Until The Blood Comes, But You Can't Get Permanently Deloused.

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

Dedication Is Not What Others Expect Of You, It Is What You Can Give To Others.

Reality Is Not Protected Or Defended By Laws, Proclamations, Ukases, Cannons And Armadas. Reality Is That Which Is Sprouting All The Time Out Of Death And Disintegration.

I Like The One About The Little Soulworms That Fly Out Of The Nest For The Resurrection.

Why Change The World? Change Worlds!

The Dreamer Whose Dreams Are Non-utilitarian Has No Place In This World. In This World The Poet Is Anathema, The Thinker A Fool, The Artist An Escapist, The Man Of Vision A Criminal.

I Wanted A Metamorphosis, A Change To Fish, To Leviathan, To Destroyer. I Wanted The Earth To Open Up, To Swallow Everything In One Engulfing Yawn. I Wanted To See The City Buried Fathoms Deep In The Bosom Of The Sea. I Wanted To Sit In A Cave And Read By Candlelight. I Wanted That Eye Extinguished So That I Might Have A Chance To Know My Own Body, My Own Desires. I Wanted To Be Alone For A Thousand Years In Order To Reflect On What I Had Seen And Heard - And In Order To Forget.

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.

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