Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a
heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and
recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because
we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of
truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes
desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths.
We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin
of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all
musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already
there.
-- Henry Miller. The Rosy Crucifixion Book I, Sexus
(1949). N.Y.: Grove Press, [c 1965] (page 26).