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 worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.
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.
It does me good to write a letter which is not a response to a demand, a gratuitous letter, so to speak, which has accumulated in me like the waters of a reservoir.
The world dies over and over again, but the skeleton always gets up and walks.
Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm.
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?
Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
We live at the edge of the miraculous.
Madness is tonic and invigorating. It makes the sane more sane. The only ones who are unable to profit by it are the insane.
The prisoner is not the one who has commited a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over.
Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.