Miserable Miracle Quotes

“On the edge of a tropical ocean, in a thousand reflections of the silver light of an invisible moon, among undulations of restless waters, ceaselessly changing...

Among silent breakers, the tremors of the shining surface, in the swift flux and reflux martyrizing the patches of light, in the rendings of luminous loops and arcs, and lines, in the occultations and reappearances of dancing bursts of light being decomposed, recomposed, contracted, spread out, only to be re-distributed once more before me, with me, within me, drowned, and unendurably buffeted, my calm violated a thousand times by the tongues of infinity, oscillating, sinusoidally overrun by the multitude of liquid lines. enormous with a thousand folds, I was and I was not, I was caught, I was lost, I was in a state of complete ubiquity. The thousands upon thousands of rustlings were my own thousand shatterings.”
― Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle

“Reality always falls short of essence. Every child knows that.”
― Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle

“But this idea, after a few quick triturations, would in turn become dangerous, for is there anything in a word which cannot be turned into a dagger?”
― Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle

“First man knows, then he understands, last he sees, or thinks he sees, and embroiders. In the same way the true poet creates, then understands...sometimes.”
― Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle

“I was the fireworks that despises the pyrotechnist, even when it can be proved that it is itself the pyrotechnist.”
― Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle

“I myself was a torrent, I was drowned, I was navigation. My great constitution hall, my ambassador's hall, my hall for gifts and exchanges into which I usher foreigners for a first examination—I had lost all my halls with my servants. I was alone, shaken around violently like a dirty thread in an energetic wash.”
― Henri Michaux, Miserable Miracle