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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.

-Henry Miller

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There Was Another Thing

Henry Miller

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

A World Without Hope, But No Despair

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Ordinary Man Is Involved In Action, The Hero Acts. An Immense Difference.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Best Technique Is None At All.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Better To Separate Than Never To Marry.

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.

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

Procrastination

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

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

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

Words Are Loneliness.

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.

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

Every Moment Is A Golden One For Him Who Has The Vision To Recognize It As Such.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Keep Your Exclamation Points Under Control!

Exclamation Points

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 Must Get Going. Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

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

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

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.

To Make Living Itself An Art, That Is The Goal.

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.

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

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

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

Who Wants To Be A Hundred? What's The Point Of It? A Short Life And A Merry One Is Far Better Than A Long One Sustained By Fear, Caution, And Perpetual Medical Surveillance.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

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

Begin This Moment, Wherever You Find Yourself, And Take No Thought Of The Morrow. Look Not To Russia, China, India, Not To Washington, Not To The Adjoining County, City Or State, But To Your Immediate Surroundings. Forget Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed And All The Others. Do Your Part To The Best Of Your Ability, Regardless Of The Consequences. Above All, Do Not Wait For The Next Man To Follow Suit.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Work On One Thing At A Time Until Finished.

One Thing At A Time

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

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

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

In This Age, Which Believes That There Is A Short Cut To Everything, The Greatest Lesson To Be Learned Is That The Most Difficult Way Is, In The Long Run, The Easiest.

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.

On The Meridian Of Time, There Is No Injustice: There Is Only The Poetry Of Motion Creating The Illusion Of Truth And Drama.

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

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.

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

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

Every Day That We Fail To Live Out The Maximum Of Our Potentialities We Kill The Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ Which Is In Us.

For The Moment I Can Think Of Nothing— Except That I Am A Sentient Being Stabbed By The Miracle Of These Waters That Reflect A Forgotten World.

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

The Cancer Of Time Is Eating Us Away

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

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

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

In The Beginning Was The Word. Man Acts It Out. He Is The Act, Not The Actor.

Creation Of Man

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

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.

Do Anything, But Let It Produce Joy. Do Anything, But Let It Yield Ecstasy.

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.

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

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.

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

To Know Paris Is To Know A Great Deal.

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

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

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

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.

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

Chaos Is The Score Upon Which Reality Is Written.

Order And Chaos

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Whatever Needs To Be Maintained Through Force Is Doomed.

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.

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.

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

By Choosing To Live Above The Ordinary Level We Create Extraordinary Problems For Ourselves.

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

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

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

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

Everything Hinges On How You Look At Things

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

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

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.

Why Are We So Full Of Restraint? Why Do We Not Give In All Directions? Is It Fear Of Losing Ourselves? Until We Do Lose Ourselves There Is No Hope Of Finding Ourselves.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

All Growth Is A Leap In The Dark.

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

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

No Man Is Great Enough Or Wise Enough For Any Of Us To Surrender Our Destiny To. The Only Way In Which Anyone Can Lead Us Is To Restore To Us The Belief In Our Own Guidance.

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

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.

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

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.

No Matter How Vast, How Total, The Failure Of Man Here On Earth, The Work Of Man Will Be Resumed Elsewhere. War Leaders Talk Of Resuming Operations On This Front And That, But Man's Front Embraces The Whole Universe.

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

When You Can't Create You Can Work

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

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

Example Moves The World More Than Doctrine.

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.

The Moment One Is On The Side Of Life; Peace And Security Drop Out Of Consciousness. The Only Peace, The Only Security, Is In Fulfillment.

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.

I Had Learned To Harness Ignorance With Presumption. I Was Ready To Become An Unacknowledged Watercolorist.

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

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.

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

Without A Coca-cola Life Is Unthinkable.

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

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.

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

Leave Out The Parts That Readers Tend To Skip.

Through Endless Night The Earth Whirls Toward A Creation Unknown.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 Study Of Crime Begins With The Knowledge Of Oneself.

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

Words, Sentences, Ideas, No Matter How Subtle Or Ingenious, The Maddest Flights Of Poetry, The Most Profound Dreams, The Most Hallucinating Visions, Are But Crude Hieroglyphs Chiseled In Pain And Sorrow To Commemorate An Event Which Is Untransmissible.

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.

Keep Your Libraries, Your Penal Institutions, Your Insaneasylums... Give Me Beer.you Think Man Needs Rule, He Needs Beer. The World Does Not Need Morals, It Needs Beer... The Souls Of Men Have Been Fed With Indigestibles, But The Soul Could Make Use Of Beer.

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

Music Is The Can-opener Of The Soul.

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

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

The 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Law Of Attraction

Writing Is Its Own Reward.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

The Purpose Of Life Is To Remember.

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

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

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

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