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I had to learn, as I soon did, that one must give up everything and not do anything else but write, that one must writer and write and write, even if everybody in the world advises you against it, even if nobody believes in you.

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
Must
Writer
Giving
Everybody
Writing
Learn
Even
Write
Advises
Believe
Else
Advise
World
Give
Believes
Anything
Soon
Everything
Nobody

More quotes by Henry Miller

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I am living at the Villa Borghese. There is not a crumb of dirt anywhere, nor a chair misplaced. We are all alone here and we are dead.
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Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
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When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.
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But you can’t put fight into a man’s guts if he hasn’t any fight in him. There are some of us so cowardly that you can’t ever make heroes of us, not even if you frighten us to death. We know too much, maybe. There are some of us who don’t live in the moment, who live a little ahead, or a little behind.
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An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness.
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Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.
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Man torturing man is a fiend beyond description. You turn a corner in the dark and there he is. You congeal into a bundle of inanimate fear. You become the very soul of anesthesia. But there is no escaping him. It is your turn now.
Henry Miller
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And the books you write. They're not you. They're not me sitting here, this Henry Miller. They belong to someone else. It's terrible. You can never rest.
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Better to separate than never to marry.
Henry Miller
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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.
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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Who wants to be a hundred? What's the point of it? A short life and a merry one is far better than a long one sustained by fear, caution, and perpetual medical surveillance.
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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You have to write a million words before you find your voice as a writer.
Henry Miller
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I struggled in the beginning. I said I was going to write the truth, so help me God. And I thought I was. I found I couldn't. Nobody can write the absolute truth.
Henry Miller
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People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused.
Henry Miller
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Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
Henry Miller
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I felt free and chained at the same time - like one feels just before election, when all the crooks have been nominated and you are beseeched to vote for the right man.
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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Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.
Henry Miller