I was afraid to become a writer. I didn't think I had the ability - it was too big a thing. Who was I to say I am a writer? Every day men are squelching their instincts, their desires, their impulses, their intuitions. One has to get out of the fucking machine he is trapped in and do what he wants to do. But we say no, I have a wife and children. I better not think of it. That is how we commit suicide every day. It would be better if a man did what he liked to do and failed then to become a successful nobody. Isn't that so?

Auteur: Henry Miller