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.
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Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American writer. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms, developing a new sort of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, explicit language, sex, surrealist free association, and mysticism. His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), Tropic of Capricorn (1939) and The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy (1949–59), all of which are based on his experiences in New York and Paris, and all of which were banned in the United States until 1961. He also wrote travel memoirs and literary criticism, and painted watercolors. 2Early life Miller was born at his family's home, 450 East 85th Street, in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, New York City. He was the son of Lutheran German parents, Louise Marie (Neiting) and tailor Heinrich Miller. As a child, he lived for nine years at 662 Driggs Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, known at that time (and referred to frequently in his works) as the Fourteenth Ward. In 1900, his family moved to 1063 Decatur Street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. After finishing elementary school, although his family remained in Bushwick, Miller attended Eastern District High School in Williamsburg. As a young man, he was active with the Socialist Party of America (his "quondam idol" was the black Socialist Hubert Harrison
To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth — I count that something of a miracle.
To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth—I count that something of a miracle.’
I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.
I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.
At the bottom of every frozen heart there is a drop or two of love.
I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.
I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.
The only true obscenity is war.’
What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.
I made up my mind that I would hold onto nothing, that I would expect nothing.
To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth — I count that something of a miracle.
Anaïs, I don't know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late. You numb me. This is a little drunken, Anaïs. I am saying to myself "here is the…
Anais, I only thought I loved you before; it was nothing like this certainty that's in me now. Was all this so wonderful only because it was brief and stolen? Were we acting for each other, to each other? Was I less I, or more I, and you less or more you? Is it madness to believe that this could go…
One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.
Certainly paradise, whatever, wherever it be, contains flaws. (Paradisical flaws, if you like.) If it did not, it would be incapable of drawing the hearts of men or angels.