Henry Miller

“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...”

“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, an...”

“We have evolved a new cosmogony of literature, Boris and I. It is to be a new Bible - The Last Book. All those who have anything to say will say it here - anonymously. We will exhaust the ag...”

“They were alive and they spoke to me! That is the simplest and most eloquent way in which I can refer to those authors who have remained with me over the years.”

“Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very o...”

“Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring.”

“There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.”

“One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.”

“It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world - it's the American way of looking at things.”

“We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it means danger, revolution, anarchy.”

“If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”

“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.”

“When you know what men are capable of you marvel neither at their sublimity nor their baseness. There are no limits in either direction apparently.”

“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.”

“The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.”

“Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets.”

“One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.”

“The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.”

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”

“Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race.”