Famous Quotes by Henry Miller (115 Quotations)

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music — the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

Henry Miller – [Passion]

Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own instincts, his own inclinations, society would undergo such a radical transformation as to make the adult revolutionary cower and cringe.

Henry Miller – [Boys]

Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.

Henry Miller – [Books: Classics]

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.

Henry Miller – [Example]

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.

Henry Miller – [Fame]

Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.

Henry Miller – [Critics and Criticism]

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.

Henry Miller – [Hope]

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!

Henry Miller – [Inspiration]

I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth.

Henry Miller – [Decay]

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.

Henry Miller – [America]

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.

Henry Miller – [America]

I will never again go to people under false pretenses even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people.

Henry Miller – [Integrity]

If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.

Henry Miller – [Ambition]

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.

Henry Miller – [Travel and Tourism]

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.

Henry Miller – [Psychiatry]

Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything.

Henry Miller – [Imagination]

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.

Henry Miller – [Death and Dying]

In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.

Henry Miller – [Creation]

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.

Henry Miller – [Solutions]

Instead of asking — ''How much damage will the work in question bring about?'' why not ask — ''How much good? How much joy?''

Henry Miller – [Censorship]