01c. 1935 ADI 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.Henry Miller / quote ↗
02c. 1935 ADI see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous [person], the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the [person] in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.Henry Miller / quote ↗
03c. 1935 ADOver and over again I have said that there is no way out of the present impasse. If we were wide awake we would be instantly struck by the horrors which surround us ... We would drop our tools, quit our jobs, deny our obligations, pay no taxes, observe no laws, and so on. Could the man or woman who is thoroughly awakened possibly do the crazy things which are now expected of him or her every moment of the day?Henry Miller / quote ↗
05c. 1935 ADBut you can’t put fight into a man’s guts if hehasn’t any fight in him. There are some of us so cowardly that youcan’t ever make heroes of us, not even if you frighten us to death.We know too much, maybe. There are some of us who don’t live in themoment, who live a little ahead, or a little behind.Henry Miller / quote ↗
06c. 1935 ADWhen a situation gets so bad that no solution seems possible there is left only murder and suicide, or both. These failing, one becomes a buffoon.Henry Miller / quote ↗
07c. 1935 ADThat we cannot rise equal to situations when we are in them — that is the tragedy of life.Henry Miller / quote ↗
08c. 1935 ADFor in Mexico, ladies and gentlemen, it's always high noon and what glows is fuchsia and what's dead is dead and no feather-dusters.Henry Miller / quote ↗
09c. 1935 ADNo stone was laid upon· another with love or reverence; no street was laid for dance or joy. One thing has been added to another in a mad scramble to fill the belly, and the streets smell of empty bellies and full bellies and bellies half full. The streets smell of a hunger which has nothing to do with love; they smell of thc belly which is insatiable and of the creations of the cmpty helly which are null and void.Henry Miller / quote ↗
10c. 1935 ADIf you can't give the is-ness of a thing give the not-ness of it! The main thing is to hook up, get the wheels turning, sound off. When your brakes jam, try going in reverse. If often works.Henry Miller / quote ↗
11c. 1935 ADLife has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.Henry Miller / quote ↗
12c. 1935 ADEvery day that we fail to live out the maximum of our potentialities we kill the Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ which is in us.Henry Miller / quote ↗
13c. 1935 ADWe have no need for genius - genius is dead. We have need for strong hands, for spirits who are willing to give up the ghost and put on flesh...Henry Miller / quote ↗
14c. 1935 ADFor 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.Henry Miller / quote ↗
15c. 1935 ADeither you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.Henry Miller / quote ↗
16c. 1935 ADIf at eighty you're not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin' and keepin' power. If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on your way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss - under your breath, of course - "Fuck you, Jack! you don't own me." If you can whistle up your ass, if you can be turned on by a fetching bottom or a lovely pair of teats, if you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from going sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you've got it half licked.Henry Miller / quote ↗
17c. 1935 ADThe most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.Henry Miller / quote ↗
18c. 1935 ADNew 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.Henry Miller / quote ↗
19c. 1935 ADMy one thought is to get out of New York, to experience something genuinely American.Henry Miller / quote ↗
20c. 1935 AD1) Work on one thing at a time until finished.2) Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."3) Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.4) Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!5) When you can't create you can work.6) Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.7) Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.8) Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasureHenry Miller / quote ↗
21c. 1935 ADBefore I shall have become a man again I shall probably exist as a park, a sort of natural park in which people come to rest, to while away the time. What they say or do will be of little matter, for they will bring only their fatigue, their boredom, their hopelessness.Henry Miller / quote ↗
22c. 1935 ADHow speak about an art which no one recognizes as an art? I know that a great deal has already been written about the "art of the cinema". One can read about it most every day in the newspapers & the magazines. But it is not the art of the cinema which you will find discussed therein--it is rather dire, botched embryo as it now stands revealed before our eyes, the still-birth which was mangled in the womb by the obstetricians of art.Henry Miller / quote ↗
23c. 1935 ADThe world is not to be put in order the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.Henry Miller / quote ↗
24c. 1935 ADWhat distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act accordingly to their beliefs.Henry Miller / quote ↗
