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French cooking Quote by Henry Miller

“If you tell a guy in the street you're hungry you scare the shit out of him, he runs like hell. That's something I never understood. I don't understand it yet. The whole thing is so simple - you just say Yes when some one comes up to you. And if you can't say Yes you can take him by the arm and…” quote by Henry Miller
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““If you tell a guy in the street you're hungry you scare the shit out of him, he runs like hell. That's something I never understood. I don't understand it yet. The whole thing is so simple - you just say Yes when some one comes up to you. And if you can't say Yes you can take him by the arm and ask some other bird to help you out. Why you have to don a uniform and kill men you don't know, just to get that crust of bread, is a mystery to me. That's what I think about, more than about whose trap it's going down or how much it costs. Why should I give a fuck about what anything costs ? I'm here to live, not to calculate. And that's just what the bastards don't want you to do - to live! They want you to spend your whole life adding up figures. That makes sense to them. That's reasonable. That's intelligent. If I were running the boat things wouldn't be so orderly perhaps, but it would be gayer, by Jesus! You wouldn't have to shit in your pants over trifles. Maybe there wouldn't be macadamized roads and streamlined cars and loudspeakers and gadgets of a million-billion varieties, maybe there wouldn't even be glass in the windows, maybe you'd have to sleep on the ground, maybe there wouldn't be French cooking and Italian cooking and Chinese cooking, maybe people would kill each other when their patience was exhausted and maybe nobody would stop them because there wouldn't be any jails or any cops or judges, and there certainly wouldn't be any cabinet ministers or legislatures because-there wouldn't be any goddamned laws to obey or disobey, and maybe it would take months and years to trek from place to place, but you wouldn't need a visa or a passport or a carte d'identite because you wouldn't be registered anywhere and you wouldn't bear a number and if you wanted to change your name every week you could do it because it wouldn't make any difference since you wouldn't own anything except what you could carry around with you and why would you want to own anything when everything would be free?””

Henry Miller

About This Quote

Source Book: Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller, 1934

The speaker critiques societal constraints that force people into rigid systems, urging spontaneous living and rejecting bureaucratic control.

In simple terms: Live freely, reject imposed rules.

Key Takeaway

Embrace spontaneity over bureaucracy.

Themes

freedom individualism societal critique rebellion existentialism

Mood

defiant ironic provocative

Type

philosophical satirical social commentary

When to use this quote

  • street encounters
  • personal philosophy
  • social commentary
  • political satire
  • daily life

Key Concepts

Anarchism existential freedom anti‑bureaucracy

Questions to Reflect On

  • What constraints truly limit you?
  • How would you balance freedom with responsibility?
A Different Perspective

The rant may romanticize chaos and ignore the benefits of some order.

4.3 out of 5 (10 ratings)

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