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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.

-Henry Miller

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The Earth Is Not

Henry Miller

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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.

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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 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. The Great Majority Of Artists Are Throwing Themselves In With Life Preservers Around Their Necks, And More Often Than Not It Is The Life Preserver, Which Sinks Them. Nobody Can Drown In The Ocean Of Reality Who Voluntarily Gives Herself Up To The Experience. Whatever There Be Of Progress In Life Comes Not Through Adaptation But Through Daring, Through Obeying The Blind Urge.

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.

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.

Everything Remains Unsettled Forever, Depend On It

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Who Hates The Jews More Than The Jew?

History Is The Myth, The True Myth, Of Man's Fall Made Manifest In Time.

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

There's Nothing Wrong With The World. What's Wrong Is Our Way Of Looking At It.

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

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

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.

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.

Even The Idiot May Have A Message For Us

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.

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.

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.

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 Saw Through To The Last Sign And Symbol, But I Could Not Read Her Face. I Could See Only The Eyes Shining Through, Huge, Fleshy-like Luminous Beasts, As Though I Were Swimming Behind Them In The Electric Effluvia Of Her Incandescent Vision.

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.

Work On One Thing At A Time Until Finished.

One Thing At A Time

Everything We Shut Our Eyes To, Everything We Run Away From, Everything We Deny, Denigrate, Or Despise, Serves To Defeat Us In The End.

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.

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.

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

The Vast Difference Between Astrology And Other Sciences, If I May Put It Thus, Is That Astrology Deals Not With Facts But With Profundities. The Solid Ground On Which The Scientist Pretends To Rest Gives Way, In Astrology, To Imponderables.

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.

To Paint Is To Love Again, And To Love Is To Live Life To The Fullest.

Without A Coca-cola Life Is Unthinkable.

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

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

How Different The New Order Would Be If We Could Consult The Veteran Instead Of The Politician.

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.

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.

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.

Tomorrow You May Bring About The Destruction Of Your World. Tomorrow You May Sing In Paradise Above The Smoking Ruins Of Your World-cities. But Tonight I Would Like To Think Of One Man, A Lone Individual, A Man Without Name Or Country, A Man Whom I Respect Because He Has Absolutely Nothing In Common With You - Myself. Tonight I Shall Meditate Upon That Which I Am.

To Know Paris Is To Know A Great Deal.

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 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 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.

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

The Cancer Of Time Is Eating Us Away

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.

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

Obscenity Is A Cleansing Process, Whereas Pornography Only Adds To The Murk.

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.

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 Piano Bar Is The Gateway To The Halls Of Masturbation.

Voyages Are Accomplished Inwardly.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

She Rises Up Out Of A Sea Of Faces And Embraces Me, Embraces Me Passionately--- A Thousand Eyes, Noses, Fingers, Legs, Bottles, Windows, Purses, Saucers All Glaring At Us An We In Each Other's Arm Oblivious. I Sit Down Beside Her And She Talks--- A Flood Of Talk. Wild Consumptive Notes Of Hysteria, Perversion, Leprosy. I Hear Not A Word Because She Is Beautiful And I Love Her And Now I Am Happy And Willing To Die.

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.

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 Had No More Need Of God Than He Had Of Me, And If There Were One, I Often Said To Myself, I Would Meet Him Calmly And Spit In His Face.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

We Must Get Going. Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

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.

Serenity Is When You Get Above All This, When It Doesn't Matter What They Think, Say Or Want, But When You Do As You Are, And See God And Devil As One.

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

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.

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.

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

Art Teaches Nothing, Except The Significance Of Life.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

Until It Is Kindled By A Spirit As Flamingly Alive As The One Which Gave It Birth A Book Is Dead To Us. Words Divested Of Their Magic Are But Dead Hieroglyphs.

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 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.

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.

Over There You Think Of Nothing But Becoming President Of The United States Some Day. Potentially Every Man Is Presidential Timber. Here It's Different. Here Every Man Is Potentially A Zero. If You Become Something Or Somebody It Is An Accident, A Miracle.

Our Own Physical Body Possesses A Wisdom Which We Who Inhabit The Body Lack. We Give It Orders Which Make No Sense.

For Some Reason Or Other Man Looks For The Miracle, And To Accomplish It He Will Wade Through Blood. He Will Debauch Himself With Ideas, He Will Reduce Himself To A Shadow If For Only One Second Of His Life He Can Close His Eyes To The Hideousness Of Reality. Everything Is Endured-disgrace, Humiliation, Poverty, War, Crime, Ennui-in The Belief That Overnight Something Will Occur, A Miracle, Which Will Render Life Tolerable.

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

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.

We Must Be Holy Without Holiness. We Must Be Whole, Complete. That's Being Holy. Any Other Kind Of Holiness Is False, A Snare, And A Delusion.

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

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

My World Of Human Beings Had Perished. I Was Utterly Alone In The World And For Friends I Had The Streets, And The Streets Spoke To Me In That Sad, Bitter Language Compounded Of Human Misery, Yearning, Regret, Failure, Wasted Effort

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.

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.

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

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

I Think Someday You're Going To Be A Great Writer," He Said. "but" He Added Maliciously, "first You'll Have To Suffer A Bit. I Mean Really Suffer, Because You Don't Know What The Word Means Yet. You Only Think You've Suffered. You've Got To Fall In Love First.

Falling In Love

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.

We Live In The Mind, In Ideas, In Fragments. We No Longer Drink In The Wild Outer Music Of The Streets - We Remember Only.

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

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

If We Have Not Found Heaven Within, It Is A Certainty We Will Not Find It Without.

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

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.

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

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.

Why Change The World? Change Worlds!

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

Develop An Interest In Life As You See It.

Interest In Life

The Real Enemy Can Always Be Met And Conquered, Or Won Over. Real Antagonism Is Based On Love, A Love Which Has Not Recognized Itself.

I Didn't Have To Think Up So Much As A Comma Or A Semicolon; It Was All Given, Straight From The Celestial Recording Room. Weary, I Would Beg For A Break, An Intermission, Time Enough, Let's Say, To Go To The Toilet Or Take A Breath Of Fresh Air On The Balcony. Nothing Doing!

I Have Never Been Able To Look Upon America As Young And Vital But Rather As Prematurely Old, As A Fruit Which Rotted Before It Had A Chance To Ripen.

Cluster Together Like Stars!

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.

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.

The Loss Of Sex Polarity Is Part And Parcel Of The Larger Disintegration, The Reflex Of The Soul's Death, And Coincident With The Disappearance Of Great Men, Great Deeds, Great Causes, Great Wars, Etc.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The Concert Is A Polite Form Of Self Induced Torture.

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

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.

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

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

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

For A Metaphysical Treat Stop At The Big Sur Inn, Which Is Also A Haven For Stray Cats And Dogs. Life Along The South Coast Is Just A Bed Of Roses, With A Few Thorns And Nettles Interspersed.

Keep Your Exclamation Points Under Control!

Exclamation Points

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.

If We Are Always Arriving And Departing, It Is Also True That We Are Eternally Anchored. One's Destination Is Never A Place But Rather A New Way Of Looking At Things.

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

Tropic Of Cancer

The Monstrous Thing Is Not That Men Have Created Roses Out Of This Dung Heap, But That, For Some Reason Or Other, They Should Want Roses.

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.

The Full And Joyful Acceptance Of The Worst In Oneself May Be The Only Sure Way Of Transforming It.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Better To Separate Than Never To Marry.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

When One Is Trying To Do Something Beyond His Known Powers It Is Useless To Seek The Approval Of Friends. Friends Are At Their Best In Moments Of Defeat.

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.

After All, Most Writing Is Done Away From The Typewriter, Away From The Desk. I'd Say It Occurs In The Quiet, Silent Moments, While You're Walking Or Shaving Or Playing A Game, Or Whatever, Or Even Talking To Someone You're Not Vitally Interested In.

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

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?

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.

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.

The Study Of Crime Begins With The Knowledge Of Oneself.

The History Of The World Is The History Of The Privileged Few.

The World Is The Mirror Of Myself Dying.

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.

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.

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)

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.

There Was Another Thing I Heartily Disbelieved In - Work. Work, It Seemed To Me Even At The Threshold Of Life, Is An Activity Reserved For The Dullard. It Is The Very Opposite Of Creation, Which Is Play… The Part Of Me Which Was Given Up To Work, Which Enabled My Wife And Child To Live In The Manner Which They Unthinkingly Demanded, This Part Of Me Which Kept The Wheel Turning - A Completely Fatuous, Ego-centric Notion! - Was The Least Part Of Me. I Gave Nothing To The World In Fulfilling The Function Of Breadwinner; The World Exacted Its Tribute Of Me, That Was All.

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

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 You Can't Create You Can Work

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

To Be Cured, We Must Rise From Our Graves And Throw Off The Cerements Of The Dead. Nobody Can Do It For Another - It Is A Private Affair Which Is Best Done Collectively. We Must Die As Egos And Be Born Again In The Swarm, Not Separated And Self-hypnotized, But Individual And Related.

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.

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!

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.

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.

We Live At The Edge Of The Miraculous.

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