Henri Michaux > Quotes

“He who has rejected his demons badgers us to death with his angels.”
― Henri Michaux, Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984

“I AM ROWING (a hex poem)

i have cursed your forehead, your belly, your life
i have cursed the streets your steps plod through
the things your hands touch
i have cursed the inside of your dreams

i have placed a puddle in your eye so that you cant see anymore
an insect in your ear so that you cant hear anymore
a sponge in your brain so that you cant understand
anymore

i have frozen you in the soul of your body
iced you in the depths of your life
the air you breathe suffocates you
the air you breathe has the air of a cellar
is an air that has already been exhaled
been puffed out by hyenas

the dung of this air is something no one can breathe
your skin is damp all over
your skin sweats out waters of great fear
your armpits reak far and wide of the crypt

animals drop dead as you pass
dogs howl at night their heads raised toward your house
you cant run away
you cant muster the strength of an ant to the tip of your feet

your fatigue makes a lead stump in your body
your fatigue is a long caravan
your fatigue stretches out to the country of nan
your fatigue is inexpressible

your mouth bites you
your nails scratch you
no longer yours, your wife
no longer yours, your brother
the sole of his foot bitten by an angry snake

someone has slobbered on your descendents
someone has drooled in the mouth of your laughing little girl
someone has walked by slobbering all over the face of your domain

the world moves away from you

i am rowing

i am rowing

i am rowing against your life

i am rowing

i split into countless rowers
to row more strongly against you

you fall into blurriness
you are out of breath
you get tired before the slightest effort

i row

i row

i row

you go off drunk tied to the tail of a mule
drunkenness like a huge umbrella that darkens the sky
and assembles the flies

dizzy drunkenness of the semicircular canals
unnoticed beginnings of hemiplegia

drunkeness no longer leaves you
lays you out to the left
lays you out to the right
lays you out on the stony ground of the path

i row
i row
i am rowing against your days

you enter the house of suffering

i row
i row

on a black blinfold your life is unfolding
on the great white eye of a one eyed horse
your future is unrolling

I AM ROWING”
― Henri Michaux

“It is preferable not to travel with a dead man.”
― Henri Michaux

“The Surrealist supernatural is a bit predictable but given the choice between supernatural and anything else, I would have no hesitation. Long live supernatural!”
― Henri Michaux

“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

“Qui cache son fou, meurt sans voix”
― Henri Michaux

“«En vérité, celui qui ne connaît pas la colère ne sait rien».”
― Henri Michaux, Plume: précédé de Lointain intérieur

“There is not one self. There are not ten selves. There is no self. ME is only a position in equilibrium. (One among a thousand others, continually possible and always at the ready.) An average of “me’s,” a movement in the crowd. In the name of many, I sign this book.”
― Henri Michaux

“The mere ambition to write a poem is enough to kill it.”
― Henri Michaux

“Base yourself on what you feel, even when you alone feel it.”
― Henri Michaux, Tent Posts

“Only learn with reservations. An entire life is not enough to unlearn what you naively, submissively, have allowed to be placed in your head---innocent one---without imagiging the consequences.”
― Henri Michaux, Tent Posts

“He who hides his madman dies voiceless.”
― Henri Michaux

“I put an apple on my table. Then I put myself inside this apple. What tranquility!”
― Henri Michaux

“bedenlerin olmadığı bir kavgaya hazırlanman gerekiyor, her durumda karşı koymayı başarabileceğin, soyut bir kavgaya, diğerlerinin aksine düşe kalka öğrenilen bir kavgaya.
kusurların mı, telaşa gerek yok. düşüncesizlik edip onları düzelteyim deme. sonra yerlerine ne koyacaksın ki?
güçsüzlüğünü olduğu gibi sakla. yeni güç kazanmaya çalışma, hele senin için olmayan güçler, sana göre tasarlanmamış güçler, doğanın seni başka şeylere hazırlarken senden kaçındığı güçler söz konusuysa…
birinin gelip senin içinde yüzmesine, senin içine yerleşmesine, senin içine alçı dökmesine izin veriyorsun ve sen hala kendin olmak istiyorsun!
yanlışlarının sonuna kadar git, en azından bazı yanlışlarının, tam olarak hangi tür yanlış olduğunu iyice gözlemlemene imkan verecek biçimde. bunu yapmazsan, yarı yolda durursan, körlemesine gidersin ve tüm yaşamın boyunca hep aynı tür yanlışları tekrarlarsın, bazıları da çıkar buna senin “kaderinmiş” der. düşmanı, ki bu aslında kendi yapındır, zorla, açığa çıksın. eğer kendi kaderini değiştiremdiysen, o zaman kiralık bir daire olabilirsin yalnızca.
çok erken akıllı oldukları için aptallar. sen ise uyum göstermek için acele etme. yedekte hep bir uyumsuzluk sakla.
insanları hiç derinden tanımadın. onları gerçekten gözlemlemedin, hatta onları sonuna kadar sevmedin veya onlardan sonuna kadar nefret etmedin. sen yalnızca sayfaları şöyle bir karıştırmakla yetindin. öyleyse senin de sayfalarını karıştırmalarına ve birkaç yapraktan ibaret olmaya razı ol.
anımsa, kazanan her kazandığında kaybeder.
kendi küçük dünyanda hep daha fazla hüzmetkarım oldu diye düşünürken, muhtemelen sen daha fazla hizmetkar oluyorsun. kimin? neyin? eh işte artık ara, ara!
bir şey yakaladıysan ister istemez daha fazlasına sahip olmuşsun demektir. bu fazlalıktan hiç şüphe duymuyorsun ve hakkında hiçbir şey bilmiyorsun, aradan uzun bir zaman geçmeden de bilmeyeceksin. belki tüm bir dönem geçtikten sonra da bilmeyeceksin. o zaman çok geç olacak. evet, çok geç.
rahat olabilirsin, içinde berraklık kalmış. tek bir yaşamda her şeyi kirletememişsin.
kendi kendine bulaşıcısındır, bunu anımsa. senin sana galip gelmesine izin verme.
meleğinin sıkıcı hale gelmesi, seni bir iblis seçmeye zorladı, o da seni şeytanlaştırandan başkası değildir. onu iyi seçtin mi? olması gerektiği gibi şeytansıdır; ama şeytanın gücü senin cılız gücünle ille de orantısız değildir. göz kulak ol ona, sıkıca sarılırlar, bunu biliyorsun değil mi?
eğer bir kara kurbağası italyanca konuşabiliyorsa, zamanla neden fransızca konuşmasın niye konuşmasın?
aptallık edip kendini göstermiş olsan dahi, sakin ol, onlar seni görmediler.
bir insanın yaşamın da taşıyabileceği duygu yükü sonsuz değildir. Üstelik çoğu insan da çabucak sona varır. daha da vahim olanı, senin hissedebileceklerinin yelpazesi sınırlı bir açıklığa sahiptir. büyük zahmetle, büyük riskler alarak ya da şansın yardımıyla ya da büyük kurnazlıkla bu yelpazeyi bazı kereler biraz daha açmayı başarabilirsin, o da belli bir süre için. ama doğanın yelpazesi öyle yapılmıştır ki, eğer sürekli dikkat etmezsen, fazla geçmeden daralır, ta ki kapanıncaya kadar.
her allahın günü batan için ne yolcu gemisine ne de yolunu şaşırmış bir buzula ihtiyaç vardır, batmak, ilelebet batmak için. sahne düzenine ihtiyaç yoktur. ne titanic ne atlantis. eşlik yok, görecek bir şey de yok. yalnızca batıyorsun.
elde, kalptekinden daha fazla şefkat, kalpte de davranıştan daha fazla şefkat bulunur.
ona ait hareketleri bul. onun arzuladığı ve seni yeniden biçimleyecek hareketleri. elin dansı. şu andaki ve uzaktaki etkilerini gözlemle. bu çok önemlidir, özellikle hiç elleriyle hareket etmeyen bir insan olmuşsan. sende eksik olan buydu, boşu boşuna dışarıda aradıkların, incelemelerde ve derlemelerde değil. tanımsızca ele dön.”
― Henri Michaux

“La fièvre fit plus d'animaux que les ovaires n'en firent jamais.”
― Henri Michaux, Plume: précédé de Lointain intérieur

“At the age of eight, I still dreamed of being granted plant status.”
― Henri Michaux, Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984

“SIMPLICITY
That's what's been missing from my life: simplicity. Slowly but
surely I'm beginning to change.
For example, these days I never leave my house without taking my
bed along. If a woman passes by and catches my eye, I take her to bed
immediately.
If her ears and nose are ugly or too big, I remove them along with
her clothes and put them under the bed, ready for her to take back
when she leaves; I keep only what I like.
If she could use a change of undergarments, I arrange it. It's my
gift. If, however, I see a prettier woman walk by, I voice my regrets to
the first and poof! she disappears.
Some people who know me claim that I can't do what I've just
described, that I haven't got the balls. Well, that may have been true in
the past, but that was when I wasn't doing everything exactly the way I
like it.
Now I always enjoy my afternoons. (Mornings I work.)”
― Henri Michaux

“Tu peux être tranquille. Il reste du limpide en toi. En une seule vie tu n'as pas pu tout souiller.”
― Henri Michaux, Poteaux d'angle

“Seul,
Être à soi-même son pain,
Et encore, il s'engrange qu'il dit,
Et pète par toutes les fissures.
En blocs, en lames, en jets et en cristal,
Mais derrière le mur de ses paroles,
C'est un grand sourd.”
― Henri Michaux, La nuit remue

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

“Extending his hands from his bed, Plume was astonished not to feel the wall: “Well," he concluded, "the ants must have eaten it away.” And he went back to sleep.
Shortly thereafter, his wife shook him awake: “Take a good look, lazybones! While you were so busy sleeping, someone went and stole our house!” And indeed, stretching out on every side there was nothing but solid sky. “So it goes,” he thought.”
― Henri Michaux, Plume: précédé de Lointain intérieur

“I met an oaktree: as tall as my finger, and it was suffering. Of its four leaves, two were completely yellow. The others were drooping and had no sheen.

I could discover no enemy in the neighborhood, nor any excessive competition.

Some skillful parasite must have slipped into it. An oak, so what? what's that to a parasite?

So, I ripped it out, root and dead leaves, and up you go!

It's supposed to be tenacious, but to start living again when it was that far gone, no! it hadn't learned enough for that”
― Henri Michaux, Plume: précédé de Lointain intérieur

“«Impuissance, puissance des autres»”
― Henri Michaux, Plume: précédé de Lointain intérieur

“There is an instrument that can hardly be heard; it is played in Africa for oneself alone, inside the hut, or outside without
bothering or attracting anyone. Rudimentary, archaic, apparently put together haphazardly, freely, by the village
blacksmith, the sanzas (that is its name): no two the same, no good even for a slightly elaborated melody, it is independent
of any scale.

Anarchical. A music of murmurs, the opposite of music for competitions, compositions. Instrument to relieve us dreamily
from all the noisemakers of this world.”
― Henri Michaux

“I was full of them. I had
stopped being unfilled. Everything was perfection. I had no need to think, or weigh, or
criticize, any more. No need to compare any more. My horizontal was now vertical. I
existed at a height. I had not lived in vain.”
― Henri Michaux, Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984

“Exorcism, a reaction in force, with a battering ram, is the true poem of the prisoner.

In the very space of suffering and obsession, you introduce such exaltation, such magnificent violence, welded to the
hammering of words, that the evil is progressively dissolved, replaced by an airy demonic sphere—a marvelous state!”
― Henri Michaux

“... Odchodzisz beze mnie, moje życie,
Toczysz się,
A ja wciąż czekam, zanim zrobię krok,
Ty już gdzie indziej stajesz do walki
...”
― Henri Michaux, La nuit remue

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

“Låt inte någon välja ut dina syndabockar. Det är din sak. Om den skulle sammanfalla med någon annans syndabock, dussintals eller fler, byt bock. Den kan inte vara din.”
― Henri Michaux

“I begin to write, almost without realizing it, without thinking, busy transmitting these words I don't recognize, although they are highly significant: "Too much! Too much! You're giving me too much!”
― Henri Michaux, Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984