891 Quotes by Henry Miller

I might say, in passing, that my life seems to have been one long search for the Mara who would devour all the others and give them significant reality.

But it’s just because the chances are all against you, just because there is so little hope, that life is sweet over here.

When a portrait commences badly it’s because you’re not describing the woman you have in mind: you are thinking more about those who are going to look at the portrait than about the woman who is sitting for you.

That we cannot rise equal to situations when we are in them – that is the tragedy of life.

She felt that in everything, sublime or ignoble, there was hidden a turbulent, a vital force, a significance and beauty which art, however glorious, was but a pale refection. “I want to live!” she muttered wildly. “I want to live!

What was most annoying was that at first blush people usually took me to be good, to be kind, generous, loyal, faithful. Perhaps I did possess these virtues but if so it was because I was indiferent: I could afford to be good, kind, generous, loyal, and so forth, since I was free of envy. Envy was the one thing I was never a victim of. I have never envied anybody or anything. On the contrary, I have only felt pity for everybody and everything.

They would fight out of a sense of duty and without hatred. That is why France is strong and why she will rise again and resume her place in the world. France has been conquered but not defeated.

From the time you wake up until the moment you go to bed it’s all a lie, all a sham and a swindle. Everybody knows it, and everybody collaborates in the perpetuation of the hoax. That’s why we look so goddamned disgusting to one another.

Heroism and obscenity appear no more important in the life of the universe than the fighting or mating of a pair of insects in the woods. All is on the same plane.