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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.

-Henry Miller

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Whenever A Taboo Is

Henry Miller

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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.

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What I Want Is To Open Up. I Want To Know What's Inside Me. I Want Everybody To Open Up. I'm Like An Imbecile With A Can Opener In His Hand, Wondering Where To Begin-- To Open Up The Earth. I Know That Underneath The Mess Everything Is Marvelous. I'm Sure Of It.

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

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.

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.

Living Apart And At Peace With Myself,i Came To Realize More Vividly The Meaning Of The Doctrine Of Acceptance. To Refrain From Giving Advice, To Refrain From Meddling In The Affairs Of Others, To Refrain Even Though The Motives Be The Highest, From Tampering With Anothers Way Of Life-so Simple, Yet So Difficult For An Active Spirit. Hands Off.

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

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.

Music Is The Can-opener Of The Soul.

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

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

Friendship Love

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

A World Without Hope, But No Despair

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Through Endless Night The Earth Whirls Toward A Creation Unknown.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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

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 Learning We Received Only Tended To Obscure Our Vision. From The Day We Went To School We Learned Nothing; On The Contrary, We Were Made Obtuse, We Were Wrapped In A Fog Of Words And Abstractions.

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

Everything Hinges On How You Look At Things

It Is No Accident That Propels People Like Us To Paris.

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

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.

One Thing Is Certain, That When You Die And Are Resurrected You Belong To The Earth And Whatever Is Of The Earth Is Yours Inalienably. You Become An Anomaly Of Nature, A Being Without Shadow; You Will Never Die Again But Only Pass Away Like The Phenomena About You.

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

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.

I Wanted To Feel The Blood Running Back Into My Veins, Even At The Cost Of Annihilation. I Wanted To Shake The Stone And Light Out Of My System. I Wanted The Dark Fecundity Of Nature, The Deep Well Of The Womb, Silence, Or Else The Lapping Of The Black Waters Of Death. I Wanted To Be That Night Which The Remorseless Eye Illuminated, A Night Diapered With Stars And Trailing Comets. To Be Of Night So Frighteningly Silent, So Utterly Incomprehensible And Eloquent At The Same Time. Never More To Speak Or To Listen Or To Think.

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Why Change The World? Change Worlds!

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

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

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

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.

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.

To Have Her Here In Bed With Me, Breathing On Me, Her Hair In My Mouth—i Count That Something Of A Miracle.

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

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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To Know Paris Is To Know A Great Deal.

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

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.

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.

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Most Wonderful Opportunity Which Life Offers Is To Be Human.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

It Is Silly To Go On Pretending That Under The Skin We Are Brothers. The Truth Is More Likely That Under The Skin We Are All Cannibals, Assassins, Traitors, Liars And Hypocrites.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

When You Can't Create You Can Work

Art Teaches Nothing, Except The Significance Of Life.

Example Moves The World More Than Doctrine.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

'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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I Am Living At The Villa Borghese. There Is Not A Crumb Of Dirt Anywhere, Nor A Chair Misplaced. We Are All Alone Here And We Are Dead.

The Best Technique Is None At All.

Develop An Interest In Life As You See It.

Interest In Life

Man Torturing Man Is A Fiend Beyond Description. You Turn A Corner In The Dark And There He Is. You Congeal Into A Bundle Of Inanimate Fear. You Become The Very Soul Of Anesthesia. But There Is No Escaping Him. It Is Your Turn Now.

When You Surrender, The Problem Ceases To Exist. Try To Solve It, Or Conquer It, And You Only Set Up More Resistance. . . . The Most Difficult Thing To Admit, And To Realize With One's Whole Being, Is That You Alone Control Nothing. . . .

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.

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

The World Is The Mirror Of Myself Dying.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Human Beings Make A Strange Fauna And Flora. From A Distance They Appear Negligible; Close Up They Are Apt To Appear Ugly And Malicious. More Than Anything They Need To Be Surrounded With Sufficient Space―space Even More Than Time.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Who Hates The Jews More Than The Jew?

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.

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

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.

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.

Paint What You Like And Die Happy

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.

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.

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.

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.

We Live At The Edge Of The Miraculous.

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

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

Life Is 440 Horsepower In A 2-cylinder Engine.

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!

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.

Keep Your Exclamation Points Under Control!

Exclamation Points

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

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

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