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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

-Henry Miller

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You Must Be Life

Henry Miller

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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

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Part Of The Act Of Creating Is In Discovering Your Own Kind. They Are Everywhere. But Don't Look For Them In The Wrong Places.

There 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.

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

I'm An Egotist, But I'm Not Selfish. There's A Difference. I'm A Neurotic, I Guess. I Can't Stop Thinking About Myself. It Isn't That I Think Myself So Important. I Simply Can't Think About Anything Else, That's All.

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Your Whole Past Is Like A Long Sleep Which Would Have Been Forgotten Had There Been No Memory, But Remembrance Is There In The Blood And The Blood Is Like An Ocean In Which Everything Is Washed Away But That Which Is New And More Substantial Even Than Life - Reality.

The Purpose Of Life Is To Remember.

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.

What I Really Hoped For, No Doubt, Was To Come Upon One Of Those Lives Which Begin Nowhere, Which Lead Us Through Marshes And Salt Flats, Trickling Away, Seemingly Without Plan, Purpose Or Goal, And Suddenly Emerge, Gushing Like Geysers, And Never Cease Gushing, Even In Death.

Destiny Is What You Are Supposed To Do In Life. Fate Is What Kicks You In The Ass To Make You Do It.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

America Is No Place For An Artist: To Be An Artist Is To Be A Moral Leper, An Economic Misfit, A Social Liability. A Corn-fed Hog Enjoys A Better Life Than A Creative Writer, Painter Or Musician. To Be A Rabbit Is Better Still.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Word Which Gives The Key To The National Vice Is Waste. And People Who Are Wasteful Are Not Wise, Neither Can They Remain Young And Vigorous. In Order To Transmute Energy To Higher And More Subtle Levels One Must First Conserve It.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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Contentment And Peace

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Without A Coca-cola Life Is Unthinkable.

Life's Wildest Moment---she Kneels On The Sidewalk. Everything Else She Does Is Lies, Lies.

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

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

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

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

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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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.

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

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

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.

We Must Get Going. Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

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

Imagination Is The Voice Of The Daring.

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

Everything Remains Unsettled Forever, Depend On It

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!

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Develop An Interest In Life As You See It; The People, Things, Literature, Music - The World Is So Rich, Simply Throbbing With Rich Treasures, Beautiful Souls And Interesting People. Forget Yourself.

To Know Paris Is To Know A Great Deal.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Voyages Are Accomplished Inwardly.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I See Myself Forever And Ever As The Ridiculous Man, The Lonely Soul, The Wanderer, The Restless Frustrated Artist, The Man In Love With Love, Always In Search Of The Absolute, Always Seeking The Unattainable

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.

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.

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 Moves On, Whether We Act As Cowards Or Heroes. Life Has No Other Discipline To Impose, If We Would But Realize It, Than To Accept Life Unquestioningly. Everything We Shut Our Eyes To, Everything We Run Away From, Everything We Deny, Denigrate Or Despise, Serves To Defeat Us In The End. What Seems Nasty, Painful, Evil, Can Become A Source Of Beauty, Joy, And Strength, If Faced With An Open Mind. Every Moment Is A Golden One For Him Who Has The Vision To Recognize It As Such

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.

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

Words Are Loneliness.

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.

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.

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

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

Music Is The Can-opener Of The Soul.

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.

Paint What You Like And Die Happy

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.

Example Moves The World More Than Doctrine.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Friendship Love

Cluster Together Like Stars!

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

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

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

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 Took Care Of My Wheel As One Would Look After A Rolls Royce. If It Needed Repairs I Always Brought It To The Same Shop On Myrtle Avenue Run By A Negro Named Ed Perry. He Handled The Bike With Kid Gloves, You Might Say. He Would Always See To It That Neither Front Nor Back Wheel Wobbled. Often He Would Do A Job For Me Without Pay, Because, As He Put It, He Never Saw A Man So In Love With His Bike As I Was.

Every Man Is Working Out His Destiny In His Own Way And Nobody Can Be Of Any Help Except By Being Kind, Generous, And Patient.

The Best Technique Is None At All.

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

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

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.

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.

'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.

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.

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.

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.

I Am Positively Against All This Crap Which Is Carried On First In The Name Of This Thing, Then In The Name Of That. I Believe Only In What Is Active, Immediate, And Personal.

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.

As Far As History Goes I Am Dead. If There Is Something Beyond I Shall Have To Bounce Back. I Have Found God, But He Is Insufficient. I Am Only Spiritually Dead. Physically I Am Alive. Morally I Am Free. The World Which I Have Departed Is A Menagerie.

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.

You Are The Only Woman Who Has A Sense Of Gaiety, A Wise Tolerance - No More, You Seem To Urge Me To Betray You. I Love You For That. [...] I Don't Know What To Expect Of You, But It Is Something In The Way Of A Miracle. I Am Going To Demand Everything Of You - Even The Impossible, Because You Encourage It. You Are Really Strong. I Even Like Your Deceit, Your Treachery. It Seems Aristocratic To Me.

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

Falling In Love

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Study Of Crime Begins With The Knowledge Of Oneself.

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

I Have Found God, But He Is Insufficient.

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.

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

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.

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

Life Is 440 Horsepower In A 2-cylinder Engine.

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

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.

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.

The Life Of A Creator Is Not The Only Life Nor Perhaps The Most Interesting Which A Man Leads. There Is A Time For Play And A Time For Work, A Time For Creation And A Time For Lying Fallow. And There Is A Time, Glorious Too In Its Own Way, When One Scarcely Exists, When One Is A Complete Void. I Mean-when Boredom Seems The Very Stuff Of Life.

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.

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.

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

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

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

We Live At The Edge Of The Miraculous.

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

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.

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

A Man Of Good Will With A Little Effort And Belief In His Own Powers Can Enjoy A Deep, Tranquil, Rich Life - Provided He Go His Own Way.... To Live One's Own Life Is Still The Best Way Of Life, Always Was And Always Will Be.

The World Is The Mirror Of Myself Dying.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Tropic Of Cancer

No, There's Fifteen Francs Somewhere, Which Nobody Gives A Damn About Anymore And Which Nobody Is Going To Get In The End Anyhow, But The Fifteen Francs Is Like The Primal Cause Of Things And Rather Than Listen To One's Own Voice, Rather Than Walk Out On The Primal Cause, One Surrenders To The Situation, One Goes On Butchering And Butchering And The More Cowardly One Feels The More Heroically Does He Behave, Until A Day When The Bottom Drops Out And Suddenly All The Guns Are Silenced And The Stretcher-bearers Pick Up The Maimed And Bleeding Heroes And Pin Medals On Their Chest.

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William Feather

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