891 Quotes by Henry Miller

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.

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

Tell me what it is that man can build, to protect himself, which other men cannot destroy? What are we trying to defend? Only what is old, useless, dead, indefensible. Every defense is a provocation to assault. Why not surrender? Why not give – give all? It’s so damned practical, so thoroughly effective and disarming.

When one spends what he has on himselef, when one has a thoroughly good time with his own money, people are apt to say “he doesn’t know what to do with his money.

He falls on her lap and lies there quivering like a toothache.

Everybody is giving birth to something – everybody but the lesbian in the upper tier. Her head is uptilted, her throat wide open; she is all alert and tingling with the shower of sparks that burst from the radium symphony. Jupiter is piercing her ears.

It’s terrible to be civilized, because when you come to the end of the world you have nothing to support the terror of loneliness.

I would say that the “masterpiece” was the creative act itself and not a particular work which happened to please a large audience and be accepted as the very body of Christ.

Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything except his own nature.