Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Millerwas an American writer. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms, developing a new sort of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, explicit language, sex, surrealist free association and mysticism. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, Tropic of Capricornand The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, all of which are based on his experiences in New York and Paris, and all of which were banned in the United...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAutobiographer
Date of Birth26 December 1891
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
The concert is a polite form of self induced torture.
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.
Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.
One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses.
What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature.
When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness. There are no limits in either direction apparently.
And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?
Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.
It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world - it's the American way of looking at things.
Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
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.
Human beings make a strange fauna and flora. From a distance they appear negligible; close up they are apt to appear ugly and malicious. More than anything they need to be surrounded with sufficient space―space even more than time.
If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible, But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud.