From The World of Sex:
The crucial and truly pivotal events which mark our way are the fruits of silence and of solitude. We attribute much to chance meetings, refer to them as turning points in our life, but these encounters could never have occurred had we not made ourselves ready for them. If we possessed more awareness, these fortuitous encounters would yield still greater rewards. It is only certain unpredictable times that we are fully attuned, fully expectant, and thus in a position to receive the favors of fortune. The one who is thoroughly awake knows that every "happening" is packed with significance.
From Tropic of Capricorn:
The night I sat down to read Dostoevski for the first time was a most important event in my life, even more important than my first love. It was the first deliberate, conscious act which had significance for me; it changed the whole face of the world. Whether it is true that the clock stopped that moment when I looked up after the first deep gulp I don't know any more. But the world stopped for a moment, that I know. It was the first glimpse into the soul of a man, or shall I say simply that Dostoevski was the first man to reveal his soul to me? Maybe I had been a bit queer before that, without realizing it, but from the moment I dipped into Dostoevski I was definitely, irrevocably, contendedly queer. The ordinary, waking, workaday world was finished for me. Any ambition or desire I had to write was also killed—for a long time to come. I was like those men who have been too long in the trenches, too long under fire. Ordinary human suffering, ordinary human jealousy, ordinary human ambitions—it was just so much shit to me.
Books by/on Miller at Powell's Books
