Top 500 Henry Miller Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “People are like lice – they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can’t get permanently deloused.”

— Henry Miller

102. “We should not stop to reflect, compare, analyze, possess, but flow on and through, endlessly, like music.”

— Henry Miller

103. “For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter.”

— Henry Miller

104. “Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.”

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

106. “A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”

— Henry Miller

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107. “My hunger and curiosity drive me forward in all directions at once.”

— Henry Miller

108. “Those interested in celestial navigation are advised to first obtain a rudimentary knowledge of integral calculus, phlebotomy, astral physics and related subjects. The use of liquor is strictly forbidden on interplanetary flights.”

— Henry Miller

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109. “The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.”

— Henry Miller

110. “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

111. “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

112. “The moment one is on the side of life; peace and security drop out of consciousness. The only peace, the only security, is in fulfillment.”

— Henry Miller

113. “Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.”

— Henry Miller

114. “The only law which is really lived up to wholeheartedly and with a vengeance is the law of conformity.”

— Henry Miller

115. “Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.”

— Henry Miller

116. “People used to envy me my inspiration. I hate inspiration. It takes you over completely. I could never wait until it passed and I got rid of it.”

— Henry Miller

117. “We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.”

— Henry Miller

118. “If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without.”

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

120. “Each man has his own way of being himself and of saying it so ultimately that he can’t be denied.”

— Henry Miller

121. “When man becomes fully conscious of his powers, his role, his destiny, he is an artist and he ceases his struggle with reality.”

— Henry Miller

122. “Everything hinges on how you look at things.”

— Henry Miller

123. “The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.”

— Henry Miller

124. “Sin, guilt, neurosis; they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.”

— Henry Miller

125. “We kill because we are afraid of our own shadow, afraid that if we used a little common sense we’d have to admit that our glorious principles were wrong.”

— Henry Miller

126. “The most wonderful opportunity which life offers is to be human.”

— Henry Miller

127. “Why change the world? Change worlds!”

— Henry Miller

128. “Imagination is the voice of the daring.”

— Henry Miller

129. “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.”

— Henry Miller

130. “I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul.”

— Henry Miller

131. “The secret to a happy life is having lots of interests. Interests are ammunition against despair.”

— Henry Miller

132. “For the artist to attach himself to his work, or identify himself with it, is suicidal.”

— Henry Miller

133. “Every time you come to the limit of what is demanded of you, you are faced with the same problem-to be yourself!”

— Henry Miller

134. “Day by day. No yesterdays and no tomorrows. The barometer never changes, the flag is always at half-mast.”

— Henry Miller

135. “Though I’ve known you a short time, I feel I know you intimately. Not your life but you, your emotions, your dreams, your aspirations.”

— Henry Miller

136. “Don’t look away. Look straight at everything. Look it all in the eye, good and bad.”

— Henry Miller

137. “The history of the world is the history of the privileged few.”

— Henry Miller

138. “All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet. There are passages in Ulysses which can be read only in the toilet – if one wants to extract the full flavor of their content.”

— Henry Miller

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139. “Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.”

— Henry Miller

140. “To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.”

— Henry Miller

141. “Next to love friendship, in my opinion, is the most valuable thing life has to offer.”

— Henry Miller

142. “I want to undress you, vulgarize you a bit.”

— Henry Miller

143. “Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything – except his own nature.”

— Henry Miller

144. “Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.”

— Henry Miller

145. “I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live – if what others are doing is called living – but to express myself.”

— Henry Miller

146. “The loss of sex polarity is part and parcel of the larger disintegration, the reflex of the soul’s death, and coincident with the disappearance of great men, great deeds, great causes, great wars, etc.”

— Henry Miller

147. “The purpose of life is to remember.”

— Henry Miller

148. “Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang’s feeble imagination.”

— Henry Miller

149. “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

150. “My understanding of the meaning of a book is that the book itself disappears from sight, that it is chewed alive, digested and incorporated into the system as flesh and blood which in turn creates new spirit and reshapes the world.”

— Henry Miller

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