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

-Henry Miller

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When I Think Of

Henry Miller

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

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Voyages Are Accomplished Inwardly.

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.

At Epidaurus, In The Stillness, In The Great Peace That Came Over Me, I Heard The Heart Of The World Beat. I Know What The Cure Is: It Is To Give Up, To Relinquish, To Surrender, So That Our Little Hearts May Beat In Unison With The Great Heart Of The World.

Writing Is Its Own Reward.

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.

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

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.

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

Friendship Love

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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

I Read To Be Taken Out Of Myself, To Become Ecstatic.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Everyone Has His Own Reality In Which, If One Is Not Too Cautious, Timid Or Frightened, One Swims. This Is The Only Reality There Is.

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?

Life Is 440 Horsepower In A 2-cylinder Engine.

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

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.

Through Endless Night The Earth Whirls Toward A Creation Unknown.

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

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.

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

We Live At The Edge Of The Miraculous.

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.

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

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.

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.

Chaos Is The Score Upon Which Reality Is Written.

Order And Chaos

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Example Moves The World More Than Doctrine.

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.

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.

The Imperfections Of A Man, His Frailties, His Faults, Are Just As Important As His Virtues.you Can't Separate Them. They're Wedded.

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

To Be Silent The Whole Day Long, See No Newspaper, Hear No Radio, Listen To No Gossip, Be Thoroughly And Completely Lazy, Thoroughly And Completely Indifferent To The Fate Of The World Is The Finest Medicine A Man Can Give Himself.

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 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?

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.

Paint What You Like And Die Happy

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Everything Hinges On How You Look At Things

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.

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.

When You Can't Create You Can Work

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

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

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

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

We're Creators By Permission, By Grace As It Were. No One Creates Alone, Of And By Himself. An Artist Is An Instrument That Registers Something Already Existent, Something Which Belongs To The Whole World, And Which, If He Is An Artist, He Is Compelled To Give Back To The World.

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.

If One Believes, Then Miracles Occur.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Certainly Paradise, Whatever, Wherever It Be, Contains Flaws. (paradisical Flaws, If You Like.) If It Did Not, It Would Be Incapable Of Drawing The Hearts Of Men Or Angels.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Cradles Of Civilization Are The Putrid Sinks Of The World.

Who But The Artist Has The Power To Open Man Up, To Set Free The Imagination? The Others - Priest, Teacher, Saint, Statesman, Warrior - Hold Us To The Path Of History. They Keep Us Chained To The Rock, That The Vultures May Eat Out Our Hearts. It Is The Artist Who Has The Courage To Go Against The Crowd; He Is The Unrecognized "hero Of Our Time" - And Of All Time.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Procrastination

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.

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.

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

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

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

It's Good To Be Just Plain Happy, It's A Little Better To Know That You're Happy; But To Understand That You're Happy And To Know Why And How And Still Be Happy, Be Happy In The Being And The Knowing, Well That Is Beyond Happiness, That Is Bliss.

No Man Would Set A Word Down On Paper If He Had The Courage To Live Out What He Believed In.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Art Teaches Nothing, Except The Significance Of Life.

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

We Are All Guilty Of Crime The Great Crime Of Not Living Life To The Full. But We Are All Potentially Free. We Can Stop Thinking Of What We Have Failed To Do And Do Whatever Lies Within Our Power. What Those Powers That Are In Us May Be No One Has Truly Dared To Imagine. That They Are Infinite We Will Realize The Day We Admit To Ourselves That Imagination Is Everything. Imagination Is The Voice Of Daring.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Music Is The Can-opener Of The Soul.

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

There Are No "facts"- There Is Only The Fact That Man, Every Man Everywhere In The World, Is On His Way To Ordination. Some Men Take The Long Route And Some Take The Short Route. Every Man Is Working Out His Own Way And Nobody Can Be Of Help Except By Being Kind, Generous, And Patient.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Giving And Receiving Are At Bottom One Thing, Dependent On Whether One Lives Open Or Closed. Living Openly One Becomes A Medium, A Transmitter; Living Thus, As A River, One Experiences Life To The Full, Flows Along With The Current Of Life, And Dies In Order To Live Again As An Ocean.

To Know Paris Is To Know A Great Deal.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whatever I Do Is Done Out Of Sheer Joy; I Drop My Fruits Like A Ripe Tree. What The General Reader Or The Critic Makes Of Them Is Not My Concern.

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

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.

Life Is Constantly Providing Us With New Funds, New Resources, Even When We Are Reduced To Immobility. In Life's Ledger There Is No Such Thing As Frozen Assets.

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

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.

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

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

What I Secretly Longed For Was To Disentangle Myself Of All Those Lives Which Had Woven Themselves Into The Pattern Of My Own Life And Were Making My Destiny A Part Of Theirs. To Shake Myself Free Of These Accumulating Experiences Which Were Mine Only By Force Of Inertia Required A Violent Effort. Now And Then I Lunged And Tore At The Net, But Only To Become More Enmeshed. My Liberation Seemed To Involve Pain And Suffering To Those Near And Dear To Me. Every Move I Made For My Own Private Good Brought About Reproach And Condemnation. I Was A Traitor A Thousand Times Over.

We Have Two American Flags Always: One For The Rich And One For The Poor. When The Rich Fly It Means That Things Are Under Control; When The Poor Fly It Means Danger, Revolution, Anarchy.

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

The Tragedy Of It Is That Nobody Sees The Look Of Desperation On My Face. Thousands And Thousands Of Us, And We're Passing One Another Without A Look Of Recognition.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Every Man, When He Gets Quiet, When He Becomes Desperately Honest With Himself, Is Capable Of Uttering Profound Truths. We All Derive From The Same Source. There Is No Mystery About The Origin Of Things. We Are All Part Of Creation, All Kings, All Poets, All Musicians; We Have Only To Open Up, Only To Discover What Is Already There.

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

Tropic Of Cancer

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.

I Want To Undress You, Vulgarize You A Bit.

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

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?

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

Honest Criticism Means Nothing: What One Wants Is Unrestrained Passion, Fire For Fire.

I Didn't Dare To Think Of Anything Then Except The "facts." To Get Beneath The Facts I Would Have Had To Be An Artist, And One Doesn't Become An Artist Overnight. First You Have To Be Crushed, To Have Your Conflicting Points Of View Annihilated. You Have To Be Wiped Out As A Human Being In Order To Be Born Again An Individual. You Have To Be Carbonized And Mineralized In Order To Work Upwards From The Last Common Denominator Of The Self. You Have To Get Beyond Pity In Order To Feel From The Very Roots Of Your Being.

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.

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

Even The Idiot May Have A Message For Us

The Purpose Of Life Is To Remember.

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R. Buckminster Fuller

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