Henry Miller

Henry Miller

"1) Work on one thing at a time until finished.2) Start no more new books, add no more new material to Black Spring.3) Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.4) Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!5) When you can't create you can work.6) Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.7) Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.8) Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.9) Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.10) Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.11) Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards."
95 Quotes
"1) Work on one thing at a time until finished.2) Start no more new books, add no more new material to Black Spring.3) Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.4) Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!5) When you can't create you can work.6) Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.7) Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.8) Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.9) Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.10) Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.11) Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards."
Henry Miller
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"The world is not to be put in order. The world is order. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order."
Henry Miller
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"Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself."
Henry Miller
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"Let me be, was all I wanted. Be what I am, no matter how I am."
Henry Miller Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
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"I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul."
Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer
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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 The Books in My Life
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"A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition."
Henry Miller The Books in My Life
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"Whoever uses the spirit that is in him creatively is an artist. To make living itself an art, that is the goal."
Henry Miller Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
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"Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him."
Henry Miller
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"The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens."
Henry Miller
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"An artist is always alone - if he is an artist. No, what the artist needs is loneliness."
Henry Miller
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"If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having."
Henry Miller
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"Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense."
Henry Miller
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"I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive."
Henry Miller
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"The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts."
Henry Miller
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"Los Angeles gives one the feeling of the future more strongly than any city I know of. A bad future, too, like something out of Fritz Lang's feeble imagination."
Henry Miller
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"Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything Godlike about God it is that. He dared to imagine everything."
Henry Miller
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"Back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: it comes and goes. But if one believes, then miracles occur."
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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"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience."
Henry Miller
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