Henry Miller

Henry is like a mythical animal. His writing is flamboyant, torrential, chaotic, treacherous, and dangerous. Our age has need of violence I enjoy the power of his writing, the ugly, destructive, fearless cathartic strength. This strange mixture of worship of life, enthusiasm, and passionate interest in everything, energy, exuberance, laughter, and sudden destructive storms baffle me. Everything is blasted away: hypocrisy, fear, pettiness, falsity. It is an assertion of instinct. He uses the first person, real names; he repudiates order and form and fiction itself. He writes in the uncoordinated way we feel, on various levels at once.

It is an effort to transcend the rigidities and patterns made by the rational mind. He can be swept off his feet by a book, a person, an idea. He is a musician and a painter. He notices everything. He selects from everything only what can be enjoyed. He finds joy in everything.

– “The Diary of Anais Nin” volume one, 1931-1934