Sexus is the first volume of ‘The Rosy Crucifixion’ trilogy by Henry Miller.
It was published in 1949 and chronicles the narrative of Miller’s first marriage to Maude, as well as his later marriage to Mona, his second wife.
Let’s explore some of the greatest quotes from Sexus novel for you.
Table of Contents
Sexus Quotes by Henry Miller
“Life’s wildest moment – she kneels on the sidewalk. Everything else she does is lies, lies.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“In the egocentric prism the helpless victim is walled in by the very light which he refracts. The ego dies in its own glass cage…” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“Night is longing, longing, longing, beyond all endurance.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything godlike about God, it is that. He dared to imagine everything.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“In my mind I saw my own temples in ruins, before even one brick had been laid upon another.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“Why do lovely faces haunt us so? Do extraordinary flowers have evil roots?” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“The act of dreaming, like a draught of fresh air in an abandoned house, situates the furniture of the mind in a new ambiance.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
Related Books Quotes: Lady Sings the Blues Quotes by Billie Holiday and The Shack Quotes by William Paul Young
Quotes from Sexus by Henry Miller
“To make the world laugh is one thing; to make it happy is quite another. Nobody has even succeeded in doing it.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“You can’t make people joyous just by being joyous yourself. Joy has to be generated by oneself: it is or it isn’t. Joy is founded on something too profound to be understood and communicated. To be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“What I want is to open up. I want to know what’s inside me. I want everybody to open up. I’m like an imbecile with a can opener in his hand, wondering where to begin – to open up the earth. I know that underneath the mess everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“No man ever puts down what he intended to say… words… are but crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow to commemorate an event which is untransmissible.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“To make absolute, unconditional surrender to the woman one loves is to break every bond save the desire not to lose her, which is the most terrible bond of all.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“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.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
Famous Sexus Quotes by Henry Miller
“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognise 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 and beauty.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“A good lie reveals more than the truth can ever reveal.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“She may be lying in bed reading a book, she may be making love with a prize fighter, or she may be running like mad through a field of stubble, one shoe one, one shoe off, a man named Corn Cob pursuing her hotly. Wherever she is I am standing in complete darkness; her absence blots me out.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“If you were married to a dipsomaniac, would you pretend that the mania for alcohol was perfectly harmless?” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache 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 and beauty.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
Great Sexus Quotes by Henry Miller
“The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“We must die as egos and be born again in the swarm, not separate and self-hypnotized, but individual and related.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“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…” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
“Her fluency was marvelous. She would say things at random, intricate, flamelike, or slide off into a parenthetical limbo peppered with fireworks – admirable linguistic feats which a practiced writer might struggle for hours to achieve.” ~ Henry Miller (quote from Sexus).
Sources:
