Top 500 Henry Miller Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.”

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

103. “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

104. “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

105. “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

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

— Henry Miller

107. “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

108. “The full and joyful acceptance of the worst in oneself may be the only sure way of transforming it.”

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

112. “Jump off. You are a protected individual. Do not fear.”

— Henry Miller

113. “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

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

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

116. “What is an artist? He’s a man who has antennae, who knows how to hook up to the currents which are in atmosphere, in the cosmos.”

— Henry Miller

117. “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

118. “Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.”

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

121. “If one believes, then miracles occur.”

— Henry Miller

122. “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

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

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

125. “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

126. “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

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

— Henry Miller

128. “Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy.”

— Henry Miller

129. “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

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

— Henry Miller

131. “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

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

— Henry Miller

133. “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

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

— Henry Miller

135. “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

136. “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

137. “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

138. “Who hates the Jews more than the Jew?”

— Henry Miller

139. “The City of New York is like an enormous citadel, a modern Carcassonne. Walking between the magnificent skyscrapers one feels the presence on the fringe of a howling, raging mob, a mob with empty bellies, a mob unshaven and in rags.”

— Henry Miller

140. “After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I’d say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you’re walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you’re not vitally interested in.”

— Henry Miller

141. “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

142. “When you travel often, you will be addicted to it forever.”

— Henry Miller

143. “The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.”

— Henry Miller

144. “The world dies over and over again, but the skeleton always gets up and walks.”

— Henry Miller

145. “It is the American vice, the democratic disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd.”

— Henry Miller

146. “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

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

— Henry Miller

148. “We must die as egos and be born again in the swarm, not separate and self-hypnotized, but individual and related.”

— Henry Miller

149. “The learning we received only tended to obscure our vision. From the day we went to school we learned nothing; on the contrary, we were made obtuse, we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.”

— Henry Miller

150. “The cancer of time is eating us away.”

— Henry Miller