Quotessence
Home / Authors / Henry Miller

Henry Miller Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllTropic Of CancerHenry MillerLifeSexLoveMillerBooksVidaWomenMuerteReadingExistenciaArtConrad MoricandDeathLettersRelationshipsWordsWritingAmerican Dream

Famous Henry Miller Quotes

“Now this word soul, which pops up frequently in Van Norden’s soliloquies, used to have a droll effect upon me at first. Whenever I heard the word soul from his lips I would get hysterical; somehow it seemed like a false coin, more particularly because it was usually accompanied by a gob of brown juice which left a trickle down the corner of his mouth. And as I never hesitated to laugh in his face it happened invariably that when this little word bobbed up Van Norden would pause just long enough for me to burst into a cackle and then, as if nothing had happened, he would resume his monologue, repeating the word more and more frequently and each time with more caressing emphasis. It was the soul of him that women were trying to possess—that he made clear to me. He has explained it over and over again, but he comes back to it afresh each time like a paranoiac to his obsession. In a sense, Van Norden is mad, of that I’m convinced. His one fear is to be left alone, and this fear is so deep and so persistent that even when he is on top of a woman, even when he has welded himself to her, he cannot escape the prison which he has created for himself.”

SoulFearWomenMadnessPrisonParanoiaThe SoulTropic Of CancerStone Walls Do Not A Prison MakeVan Norden
Book:Tropic of Cancer
Create image

“I love everything that flows,’ said the great blind Milton of our times. I was thinking of him this morning when I awoke with a great bloody shout of joy: I was thinking of his rivers and trees and all that world of night which he is exploring. Yes, I said to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it’s painful gall-stones, it’s gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul...”

LanguageSentencesMiltonTropic Of CancerHenry MillerJohn MiltonFlowsI Love Everything That FlowsEverything That Flows
Book:Tropic of Cancer
Create image

“«Tienes que ser vida para mí hasta el final», según escribe. «Esa es la única forma de sostener mi idea de ti. Porque, como puedes ver, has quedado ligado a mí con algo tan vital, que no creo que pueda desembarazarme de ti. Ni tampoco lo deseo. Quiero que vivas cada día más vivamente, puesto que yo estoy muerto. Por eso es por lo que, cuando hablo de ti con otros, me siento un poco avergonzado. Es difícil hablar de un mismo tan íntimamente. »”

Tropic Of Cancer
Book:Tropic of Cancer
Create image

“I love everything that flows,’ said the great blind Milton of our times. I was thinking of him this morning when I awoke with a great bloody shout of joy: I was thinking of his rivers and trees and all that world of night which he is exploring. Yes, I said to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with it’s painful gall-stones, its gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul...”

LanguageFlowWordsSentencesMiltonTropic Of CancerJohn MiltonI Love Everything That Flows
Book:Tropic of Cancer
Create image

“...He it is, if any man today possesses the gift, who knows where to dissolve the human figure, who has the courage to sacrifice an harmonious line in order to detect rhythm and murmur of the blood, who takes light that has been refracted inside him and lets it flood the keyboard of color. Behind the minutiae, the chaos, the mockery of life, he detects the invisible pattern; he announces his discoveries in the metaphysical pigment of space. No searching formulae, no crucifixion of ideas, no compulsion other than to create. Even as the world goes to smash there is one man who remains at the core, who becomes more solidly fixed and anchored, more centrifugal as the process of dissolution quickens.”

Tropic Of CancerHenry Miller
Author:Henry Miller
Create image