Top 500 Henry Miller Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.”

— Henry Miller

252. “The man who is intoxicated with life does not pass judgment, does not seek to come to a conclusion, does not impose his message on the world.”

— Henry Miller

253. “I had no more need of God than He had of me, and if there were one, I often said to myself, I would meet Him calmly and spit in His face.”

— Henry Miller

254. “There are people who cannot resist the desire to get into a cage with wild beasts and be mangled.”

— Henry Miller

255. “We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow...”

— Henry Miller

256. “Nothing that had happened to me thus far had been sufficient to destroy me; nothing had been destroyed except my illusions. I myself was intact. The world was intact.”

— Henry Miller

257. “In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.”

— Henry Miller

258. “The cradles of civilization are the putrid sinks of the world.”

— Henry Miller

259. “The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.”

— Henry Miller

260. “No matter how vast, how total, the failure of man here on earth, the work of man will be resumed elsewhere. War leaders talk of resuming operations on this front and that, but man’s front embraces the whole universe.”

— Henry Miller

261. “Every day that we fail to live out the maximum of our potentialities we kill the Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Christ which is in us.”

— Henry Miller

262. “What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature.”

— Henry Miller

263. “I felt free and chained at the same time – like one feels just before election, when all the crooks have been nominated and you are beseeched to vote for the right man.”

— Henry Miller

264. “Through endless night the earth whirls toward a creation unknown...”

— Henry Miller

265. “I don’t know which affected me more deeply – the story of the lemon groves just opposite us or the sight of Poros itself when suddenly I realized that we were sailing through the streets. If there is one dream which I like above all others it is that of sailing on land.”

— Henry Miller

266. “The monstrous thing is not that men have created roses out of this dung heap, but that, for some reason or other, they should want roses.”

— Henry Miller

267. “Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.”

— Henry Miller

268. “When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.”

— Henry Miller

269. “So, whether the world is going to pieces or not, whether you are on the side of the angels or the devil himself, take life for what it is, have fun, spread joy and confusion.”

— Henry Miller

270. “Up on the Brooklyn Bridge a man is standing in agony, waiting to jump, or waiting to write a poem, or waiting for the blood to leave his vessels because if he advances another foot the pain of his love will kill him.”

— Henry Miller

271. “I have always looked upon decay as being just as wonderful and rich an expression of life as growth.”

— Henry Miller

272. “America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still.”

— Henry Miller

273. “I suffer because of myself. It is my own soul all the time that is bothering me.”

— Henry Miller

274. “I wanted to die; I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for.”

— Henry Miller

275. “The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.”

— Henry Miller

276. “I don’t know whether you’ve ever had a woman eat an apple while you were doing it. Well, you can imagine how that affects you.”

— Henry Miller

277. “You start with the sublime and end up in an alley jerking away for dear life.”

— Henry Miller

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

— Henry Miller

279. “The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.”

— Henry Miller

280. “In Europe one gets used to doing nothing. You sit on your ass and whine all day. You get contaminated. You rot.”

— Henry Miller

281. “Somehow the realization that nothing was to be hoped for had a salutary effect upon me. For weeks and months, for years, in fact, all my life I had been looking forward to something happening, some extrinsic event that would alter my life, and now suddenly, inspired by the absolute hopelessness of everything, I felt relieved, felt as though a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders.”

— Henry Miller

282. “Example moves the world more than doctrine. The great exemplars are the poets of action, and it makes little difference whether they be forces for good or forces for evil.”

— Henry Miller

283. “Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is. You congeal into a bundle of inanimate fear. You become the very soul of anesthesia. But there is no escaping him. It is your turn now...”

— Henry Miller

284. “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.”

— Henry Miller

285. “Somewhere along the way one discovers that what one has to tell is not nearly so important as the telling itself.”

— Henry Miller

286. “We came together in a dance of death and so quickly was I sucked down into the vortex that when I came to the surface again I couldn’t recognize the world. When I found myself loose the music had ceased; the carnival was over and I had been picked clean.”

— Henry Miller

287. “Obscenity is a cleansing process, whereas pornography only adds to the murk.”

— Henry Miller

288. “Everything is endured – disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui – in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.”

— Henry Miller

289. “Man is not at home in the universe, despite all the efforts of philosophers and metaphysicians to provide a soothing syrup. Thought is still a narcotic. The deepest question is why. And it is a forbidden one. The very asking is in the nature of cosmic sabotage. And the penalty is – the afflictions of Job.”

— Henry Miller

290. “Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines – these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.”

— Henry Miller

291. “Taboos, though unadmitted, are potent. What is it that people fear? What they don’t understand. The civilized man is not a whit different from the savage in this respect. The new always carries with it the sense of violation, of sacrilege. What is dead is sacred; what is new, that is, different, is evil, dangerous, or subversive.”

— Henry Miller

292. “How different the new order would be if we could consult the veteran instead of the politician.”

— Henry Miller

293. “Do not be duped by little duties. Do not be a chore man all your days.”

— Henry Miller

294. “No one asks you to throw Mozart out of the window. Keep Mozart. Cherish him. Keep Moses too, and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Christ. Keep them in your heart. But make room for the others, the coming ones, the ones who are already scratching on the window-panes.”

— Henry Miller

295. “I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous beasts, as though I were swimming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision.”

— Henry Miller

296. “Night has fallen. I’m no longer hungry. I have only an insane desire to be happy. That means I want to share my intoxication with you and everybody. That is maudlin.”

— Henry Miller

297. “Art consists in going the full length. If you start with the drums you have to end with dynamite, or TNT.”

— Henry Miller

298. “My policy has always been to burn my bridges behind me. My face is always set toward the future. If I make a mistake it is fatal. When I am flung back I fall all the way back – to the very bottom. My one safeguard is my resiliency. So far I have always bounced back.”

— Henry Miller

299. “The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.”

— Henry Miller

300. “The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.”

— Henry Miller