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I read to be taken out of myself, to become ecstatic.

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
Ecstatic
Taken
Read
Become

More quotes by Henry Miller

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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
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After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you're not vitally interested in.
Henry Miller
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I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions.
Henry Miller
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A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation... A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.
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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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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If the poet can no longer speak for society, but only for himself, then we are at the last ditch.
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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Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.
Henry Miller
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When you can't create you can work
Henry Miller
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True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself.
Henry Miller
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Surrealism is merely the reflection of the death process. It is one of the manifestations of a life becoming extinct, a virus which quickens the inevitable end.
Henry Miller
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The man who is intoxicated with life does not pass judgment, does not seek to come to a conclusion, does not impose his message on the world.
Henry Miller
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The real leader has no need to lead - he is content to point the way.
Henry Miller
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Until he [man] has become fully human, until he learns to conduct himself as a member of the earth, he will continue to create gods who will destroy him. The tragedy of Greece lies not in the destruction of a great culture but in the abortion of a great vision.
Henry Miller
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Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation... The other eight are unimportant.
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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Whatever needs to be maintained through force is doomed.
Henry Miller
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Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn't the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.
Henry Miller
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Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.
Henry Miller