Henry Miller

United States
26 Dec 1891 // 7 Jun 1980
Writer

Quotes

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The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.
What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their ability to act according to their beliefs.
To make absolute, unconditional surrender to the woman one loves is to break every bond save the desire not to lose her, which is the most terrible bond of all.

Sexus
If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.
The world is two thirds spaghetti and meatballs, one third syphilitic chancre.
Like every man I am my own worst enemy, but unlike most men I know too that I am my own saviour.

Henry Miller on Writing
No particular reason for anything. I'm free - that's the main thing.
A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.
Man, as man, has never realized himself. The greater part of him, his potential being, has always been submerged. What is history if not the endless story of his repeated failures?

Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
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.

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