“[C]haos is the score upon which reality is written.”

~Henry Miller, American author

Tropic of Cancer (1934) New York: Grove Press, 1961 edition, p. 1

Full line:  “When into the womb of time everything is again withdrawn chaos will be restored and chaos is the score upon which reality is written.

“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses.  That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth a beauty.

~Henry Miller, American author

Sexus (1949) New York: Grove Press, 1965 edition, p. 26

Miller added:  “Every man, when he gets quiet, when he gets desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths.”

“Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.  What seems nasty, painful, evil can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind.  Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.  Life is now, every moment, no matter if the world be full of death.”

~Henry Miller, American author

The World of Sex (1940) Paris: The Olympia Press, 1957 edition, p. 88

“[I]f there is to be any peace it will come about through being, not having.”

~Henry Miller, American author

The Wisdom of the Heart (1941) New York: New Directions, p. 39

Full line: “Being is burning, in the truest sense, and if there is to be any peace it will come about through being, not having.”

“If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without.”

~Henry Miller, American author

The Books In My Life (1941) (French: Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents) (1952) New York: New Directions, 1969 edition, p. 192; online via University of Toronto, Internet Archive, www.archive.org

“Imagination is the voice of daring.  If there is anything Godlike about God it is that.  He dared to imagine everything.”

~Henry Miller, American author

Sexus (1949) New York: Grove Press, 1965 edition, p.341

Extended excerpt: “We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power.  What these powers are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine.  That they are infinite we will realize the day we admit to ourselves that imagination is everything.  Imagination is the voice of daring.  If there is anything Godlike about God it is that.  He dared to imagine everything.”

“Kindness, goodness, peace and mercy.  Neither beginning nor end.  The round.  The eternal round.”

~Henry Miller, American author

Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957) Part I, New York: New Directions, 1957 edition, p. 8

“Man will be forced to realize that power must be kept open, fluid, and free.  His aim will be not to possess power but to radiate it.”

~Henry Miller, American author

Sunday After the War (1944) New York: New Directions, p. 154

“One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.”

~Henry Miller, American author

Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957) Part I, New York: New Directions, p. 25

“Real love is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects, never demands.  It replenishes, by grace of restoring unlimited circulation.  It burns, because it knows the true meaning of sacrifice.  It is life illuminated.”

~Henry Miller, American author

The Wisdom of the Heart (1941) New York: New Directions, p. 45

“[T]he aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

~Henry Miller, American author

The Wisdom of the Heart (1941) New York: New Directions, p. 2

Full line:  “Strange as it may seem today to say, the aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

“The world has not to be put in order: the world is order incarnate.  It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order, to know what is the world order in contradistinction to the wishful-thinking orders which we seek to impose on one another. The power which we long to possess, in order to establish the good, the true and the beautiful, would prove to be, if we could have it, but the means of destroying one another. It is fortunate that we are powerless.”

~Henry Miller, American author

Sexus (1949) New York: Grove Press, 1965 edition, p.213

“Through light and joy is the world opened up, revealed for what it is: ineffable beauty, unending creation.”

~Henry Miller, American author

The Books In My Life (French: Mémoires, Plaidoiries Et Documents) (1952) New York: New Directions, 1969 edition, p. 146; online via University of Toronto, Internet Archive, www.archive.org

“We live on the edge of the miraculous every minute of our lives.”

~Henry Miller, American author

The Wisdom of the Heart (1941) New York: New Directions, p. 89

“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, American author

At Big Sur 1950? – 1950 Izis Bidermans photo book Paris des Rives

Not in: Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller on Writing, The Books in My Life , Wisdom of the Heart, Rolling Stone interview

Quoted in “The Right to Write” (1998) – no citation. No match in Newspapers.com.  Not in Google Books prior to 1995.  First seen – “Heart Steps” by Julia Cameron (no citation – 1997) – same author of “The Right to Write”

Emailed query to Henry Miller Memorial Museum, October 1