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
My books are the books that I am, the confused man, the negligent man, the reckless man, the lusty, obscene, boisterous, scrupulous, lying, diabolically truthful man that I am.
In the beginning was the Word. Man acts it out. He is the act, not the actor.
The American white man (not to speak of the Indian, the Negro, the Mexican) hasn't a ghost of a chance. If he has any talent he's doomed to have it crushed one way or another. The American way is to seduce a man by bribery and make a prostitute of him. Or else to ignore him, starve him into submission and make a hack of him.
The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.
All the lies and evasions by which man has nourished himself / civilization, in a word is the fruits of the creative artist. It is the creative nature of man which has refused to let him lapse back into that unconscious unity with life which characterizes the animal world from which he made his escape.
It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world -- it's the American way of looking at things.
We can't go into town and buy clothes, so we supply that for our people,
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.
A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.
The world is not to be put in order, the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.
Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not yet understood
We create our fate every day we live
Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look
Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.