Jump off. You are a protected individual. Do not fear.
Henry MillerRead
It does me good to write a letter which is not a response to a demand, a gratuitous letter, so to speak, which has accumulated in me like the waters of a reservoir.
Interpretation
Writing freely can be therapeutic and fulfilling.
In this quote, Henry Miller expresses the joy and liberation that comes from writing a letter without an obligation or expectation of response. He likens this act to the natural accumulation of water in a reservoir, suggesting that unexpressed thoughts and feelings can build up inside us, and writing serves as a necessary release and a means of personal expression.
In practice
Using this quote in a workshop about creative writing and self-expression.
Jump off. You are a protected individual. Do not fear.
I saw through to the last sign and symbol, but I could not read her face. I could see only the eyes shining through, huge, fleshy-like luminous beasts, as though I were swimming behind them in the electric effluvia of her incandescent vision.
The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.
Great God! What have I turned into? What right have you people to clutter up my life, steal my time, probe my soul, suckle my thoughts, have me for your companion, confidant, and information bureau? What do you take me for? Am I an entertainer on salary, required every evening to play an intellectual farce under your stupid noses? Am I a slave, bought and paid for, to crawl on my belly in front of you idlers and lay at your feet all that I do and all that I know?
We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.
To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.
A man may not transgress the bounds of major morals, but may make errors in minor morals.
Some reasonable term ought to be allowed to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments; to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government; and to admit of a probability at least, of their feeling a real interest in our affairs.
I have made a great discovery. I no longer believe in anything. Objects don't exist for me except in so far as a rapport exists between them and myself. When one attains this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual non-existence, what I can only describe as a sense of peace, which makes everything possible and right. Life then becomes a perpetual revelation. That is true poetry.
It is not the body, nor the personality that is the true self. The true self is eternal. Even on the point of death we can say to ourselves, "my true self is free. I cannot be contained."
What does this patch-sewing mean you ask? Eating and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn. You patch it with food and other ego-satisfactions.
If any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.