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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.

-Henry Miller

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To Love! To Surrender

Henry Miller

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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.

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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.

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

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.

'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.

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

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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

A Book Lying Idle On A Shelf Is Wasted Ammunition.

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

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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.

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

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

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

Procrastination

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Writing Is Its Own Reward.

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 Only Peace, The Only Security, Is In Fulfillment.

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

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

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.

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.

The Concert Is A Polite Form Of Self Induced Torture.

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.

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

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.

Man, As Man, Has Never Realized Himself. The Greater Part Of Him, His Potential Being, Has Always Been Submerged. What Is History If Not The Endless Story Of His Repeated Failures?

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.

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

Paint What You Like And Die Happy

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I Found That What I Had Desired All My Life Was Not To Live - If What Others Are Doing Is Called Living - But To Express Myself.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

One's Destination Is Never A Place But Rather A New Way Of Looking At Things.

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!

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

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

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.

Confusion Is A Word We Have Invented For An Order Which Is Not Understood.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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

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 Make Living Itself An Art, That Is The Goal.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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

The 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.

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Anna Julia Cooper

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