“At ten man is an animal, at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal.” -A quote hung on Henry Miller’s workroom wall. Source of quote unknown.
Source: German version of Playboy Press 1972 “My Life And Times” Henry Miller.
“In the beginning was the word, but for the Word to come forth there had first to be a separation of some kind. To detach itself from the bosom of creation there had to be a need, a human need. The word is always the reminder of a more perfect state, of a union or unity which is ineffable and indescribable. Creation is always difficult because it is an attempt to recover what is lost. To regain we must first feel abandoned.”
-Henry Miller, Letters To Anais Nin, Feb. 21, 1939 (Her 36th Birthday?)
“The greatest men in the world have passed away unknown. The Buddhas and the Christs that we know are but second-rate heroes in comparison with the greatest men of whom the world knows nothing. Hundreds of these unknown heroes have lived in every country working silently. Silently they live and silently they pass away; and in time their thoughts find expression in Buddhas or Christs; and it is these latter that become known to us. The highest men do not seek to get any name or fame from their knowledge. They leave their ideas to the world; they put forth no claims for themselves and establish no schools or systems in their name. Their whole nature shrinks from such a thing. They are the pure Sattvikas, who can never make any stir but only melt down in love.”
-Swami Vivekananda, from the preface/citation of Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
“About a year ago, upon reading Tropic of Cancer, Ezra Pound wrote me a postcard in his usual Cabalistic style, asking me if I had ever thought about money, what makes it and how it gets that way. The truth is that until Mr. Pound put the question to me I had never really thought about the subject. Since then, however, I have thought about it night and day. The result of my meditations and lucubrations I now offer to the world in the shape of this little treatise which, if it does not settle the problem once and for all, may at least unsettle it.” -Henry Miller, Forward to Money and How It Gets That Way, Paris, November 1, 1936
“I would a thousand times rather be the most incorrigible convict than this hireling of those who are trying to maintain law and order. Law and order! Finally, when you see it staring at you through the barrel of a rifle, you know what it means. A bas puissance, justice, histoire! If society has to be protected by these inhuman monsters then to hell with society! If at the bottom of law and order there is only a man armed to the teeth, a man without a heart, without a conscience, then law and order are meaningless.” -Henry Miller, The Soul Of Anaesthesia, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
“Admitting this, I nevertheless firmly believe that no world order, no world harmony, is possible until the artist assumes leadership. I mean by this that the artist in man must come to the fore, over against the patriot, the warrior, the diplomat, the fanatical idealist, the misguided revolutionary. It is not against the gods man must rebel–the gods are with him, if he but knew it!–but against his own mediocre, vulgar, blighted spirit.” -Henry Miller, When I Reach For My Revolver
Henry Miller’s 11 commandments for writing (that Tommi doesn’t live by).
Rant on.
-ts
