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Certainly paradise, whatever, wherever it be, contains flaws. (Paradisical flaws, if you like.) If it did not, it would be incapable of drawing the hearts of men or angels.

Henry Miller

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Henry Miller
Age: 88 †
Born: 1891
Born: December 26
Died: 1980
Died: June 7
Essayist
Novelist
Painter
Writer
New York City
New York
Genri Miller
Henri Miller
Phineas Flapdoodle
Like
Drawing
Angel
Hearts
Contains
Certainly
Incapable
Whatever
Flaws
Heart
Angels
Would
Paradise
Men
Wherever

More quotes by Henry Miller

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Perhaps I am still very much of an American. That is to say, naïve, optimistic, gullible. In the eyes of a European, what am I but an American to the core, an American who exposes his Americanism like a sore. Like it or not, I am a product of this land of plenty, a believer in superabundance, a believer in miracles.
Henry Miller
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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
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The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph.
Henry Miller
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To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.
Henry Miller
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Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
Henry Miller
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The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.
Henry Miller
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There is something else to be said about this immediate, spontaneous way of working, and that is this: in such moments, one is playing at the game of creation.
Henry Miller
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All my good reading, you might say, was done in the toilet.
Henry Miller
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I'd rather sit down and write a letter than call someone up. I hate the telephone.
Henry Miller
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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.
Henry Miller
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When you meet the man [Brassai] you see at once that he is equipped with no ordinary eyes. And the sharpness of vision and depth of insight are revealed in Brassai's lifelong photographic exploration of Paris - its people, places, and things.
Henry Miller
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Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.
Henry Miller
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We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy.
Henry Miller
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I feel that America is essentially against the artist, that the enemy of America is the artist, because he stands for individuality and creativeness, and that's un-American somehow.
Henry Miller
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The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly they underwrite it with their lives.
Henry Miller
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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.
Henry Miller
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The Frenchman is first and foremost a man. He is likeable often just because of his weaknesses, which are always thoroughly human, even if despicable.
Henry Miller
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The practice of any art demands more than 'mere savoir faire'. One must not only be in love with what one does, one must also know how to make love. In love self is obliterated. Only the beloved counts.
Henry Miller
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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
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Over there you think of nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it's different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you become something or somebody it is an accident, a miracle.
Henry Miller