Quote

The life of a creator is not the only life nor perhaps the most interesting which a man leads. There is a time for play and a time for work, a time for creation and a time for lying fallow. And there is a time, glorious too in its own way, when one scarcely exists, when one is a complete void. I mean-when boredom seems the very stuff of life.

Henry Miller

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Time
Interesting
Glorious
Life
Stuff
Leads
Seems
Creator
Play
Exists
Fallow
Mean
Complete
Scarcely
Work
Creation
Bores
Way
Perhaps
Void
Men
Lying
Boredom

More quotes by Henry Miller

Image
I had to learn to think, feel, and see in a totally new fashion, in an uneducated way, in my own way, which is the hardest thing in the world. I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink.
Henry Miller
Image
The real enemy can always be met and conquered, or won over. Real antagonism is based on love, a love which has not recognized itself.
Henry Miller
Image
The loss of sex polarity is part and parcel of the larger disintegration, the reflex of the soul's death, and coincident with the disappearance of great men, great deeds, great causes, great wars, etc.
Henry Miller
Image
The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.
Henry Miller
Image
I thought, when I came upon her, that I was seizing hold of life... Instead I lost hold of life completely. I reached out for something to attach myself to - and I found nothing. But in reaching out, in the effort to grasp, to attach myself, left high and dry as I was, I nevertheless found something I had not looked for - myself.
Henry Miller
Image
If one believes, then miracles occur.
Henry Miller
Image
When you can't create you can work
Henry Miller
Image
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
Image
It is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars and hypocrites.
Henry Miller
Image
How different the new order would be if we could consult the veteran instead of the politician.
Henry Miller
Image
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.
Henry Miller
Image
The vast difference between astrology and other sciences, if I may put it thus, is that astrology deals not with facts but with profundities. The solid ground on which the scientist pretends to rest gives way, in astrology, to imponderables.
Henry Miller
Image
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
Image
A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.
Henry Miller
Image
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
Image
Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes.
Henry Miller
Image
No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.
Henry Miller
Image
The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. All that you despise, all that you loathe, all that you reject, all that you condemn and seek to convert by punishment springs from you.
Henry Miller
Image
The concert is a polite form of self induced torture.
Henry Miller
Image
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