Henry Miller

United States
26 Dec 1891 // 7 Jun 1980
Writer

Quotes

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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?
I haven't any allegiance, any responsibilities, any hatreds, any worries, any prejudices, any passion. I'm neither for nor against. I'm a neutral.

Tropic of Cancer
We live entirely in the past, nourished by dead thoughts, dead creeds, dead sciences. And it is the past which is engulfing us, not the future. The future always has and always will belong to - the poet.

The Time of the Assassins: a Study of Rimbaud
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.
Art teaches nothing except the significance of life.
Writing is its own reward.
My hunger and curiosity drive me forward in all directions at once.

Plexus
As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.

Tropic of Cancer
Every time you come to the limit of what is demanded of you, you are faced with the same problem - to be yourself!

Tropic of Capricorn
The cancer of time is eating us away.

Tropic of Cancer
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays