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My understanding of the meaning of a book is that the book itself disappears from sight, that it is chewed alive, digested and incorporated into the system as flesh and blood which in turn creates new spirit and reshapes the world.

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
System
Disappears
Alive
Creates
Understanding
Disappear
Turns
Flesh
Spirit
Sight
Book
Meaning
Chewed
World
Turn
Digested
Blood
Incorporated

More quotes by Henry Miller

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There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry.
Henry Miller
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Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.
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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What I want is to open up. I want to know what's inside me. I want everybody to open up. I'm like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin-- to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I'm sure of it.
Henry Miller
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Topographically the country is magnificent - and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete. Nowhere have I encountered such a dull, monotonous fabric of life as here in America. Here boredom reaches its peak.
Henry Miller
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A world without hope, but no despair
Henry Miller
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Fame is an illusive thing - here today, gone tomorrow. The fickle, shallow mob raises its heroes to the pinnacle of approval today and hurls them into oblivion tomorrow at the slightest whim cheers today, hisses tomorrow utter forgetfulness in a few months.
Henry Miller
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The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment.
Henry Miller
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Cluster together like stars!
Henry Miller
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Honest criticism means nothing: what one wants is unrestrained passion, fire for fire.
Henry Miller
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The art of living is based on rhythm - on give & take, ebb & flow, light & dark, life & death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good & bad, right & wrong, yours & mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life,' metamorphosis.
Henry Miller
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Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.
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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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
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And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?
Henry Miller
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Greece is the home of the gods they may have died but their presence still makes itself felt. The gods were of human proportion: they were created out of the human spirit.
Henry Miller
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Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern.
Henry Miller
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If you are well off and can afford to spend ten or twenty-five dollars a day to hire some patient soul to listen to your troubles you can be readjusted to the crazy scheme of things and spare yourself the humiliation of becoming a Christian Scientist. You can have your ego trimmed or removed, as you wish, just like a wart or bunion.
Henry Miller
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As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.
Henry Miller
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By choosing to live above the ordinary level we create extraordinary problems for ourselves.
Henry Miller