Anais Nin

United States
21 Feb 1903 // 14 Jan 1977
Author

Quotes

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If I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madnesses.

The Diary of Ana�s Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
I am aware of being in a beautiful prison, from which I can only escape by writing.

The Diary of Ana�s Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
It takes courage to push yourself to places you have never been before... to test yout limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to stay tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossum.
I know why familles were created, with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.
Writers do not live one life, they live two. There is the living and then there is the writing. There is the second tasting, the delayed reaction.
It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.
Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.
When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.

The Diary of Ana�s Nin, Vol. 4: 1944-1947
When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
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Human, All Too Human
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