Henry Miller Quotes About Art
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A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will.
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The practice of any art demands more than 'mere savoir faire'. One must not only be in love with what one does, one must also know how to make love. In love self is obliterated. Only the beloved counts.
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The poem is the dream made flesh, in a two-fold sense: as work of art, and as life, which is a work of art.
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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 often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.
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The art of living is based on rhythm - on give & take, ebb & flow, light & dark, life & death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good & bad, right & wrong, yours & mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life,' metamorphosis.
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When I reflect that the task which the artist implicitly sets himself is to overthrow existing values, to make of the chaos about him an order which is his own, to sow strife and ferment so that by the emotional release those who are dead may be restored to life, then it is that I run with joy to the great and imperfect ones, their confusion nourishes me, their stuttering is like divine music to my ears.
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Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.
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The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.
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To live without killing is a thought which could electrify the world, if men were only capable of staying awake long enough to let the idea soak in.
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To make living itself an art, that is the goal.
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Men are not suffering from the lack of good literature, good art, good theatre, good music, but from that which has made it impossible for these to become manifest. In short, they are suffering from the silent shameful conspiracy (the more shameful since it is unacknowledged) which has bound them together as enemies of art and artists.
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I demanded a realm in which I should be both master and slave at the same time: The world of art is the only such realm.
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Art is only a means to life, the life more abundant. It merely points the way.
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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.
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Why change the world? Change worlds!
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The waking mind, you see, is the least serviceable in the arts.
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This is not a book in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what you will.
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