There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.
Anais Nin
Related There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was dr... ANAïS NIN They came to her, naturally, since she was a woman, all day long with this and that; one wanting thi... VIRGINIA WOOLF I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES Randi would walk into the cancer center and smile at the other patients. She would always have a hug... ELAINE GAMPEL We had a pregnant woman complaining of shortness of breath, and another woman who was asthmatic, who... LARRY LANGFORD Fred Zinnemann, on From Here To Eternity and The Sundowners really brings out of me, in a completely... DEBORAH KERR They need to understand they have to do something post secondary. Work is inevitable. They have to p... DEBORAH KERR It was hard to disappear completely in Botswana, where there were fewer than two million people and ... ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH He was ruining it. Five minutes before, he’d looked at her with desire and she’d thought finally... ARIELLE HUDSON Her searches after knowledge were arbitrary and without context. It was as if she were shining a sma... GLORIA STEINEM There are women who only look at another woman's shoes and never at her face. And others who al... NINA GEORGE As a kid, when most of my friends were into Superman and Batman, there was only one superhero who he... GAVIN O'CONNOR And for about the millionth time in her life she felt an overwhelming gratitude for her best friend.... ROB THOMAS Sisterhood was about shared experiences, trust, knowing you had people who would be there for you an... MICHELLE MADOW Both men had made her feel as if she were the one who was at fault, a typically masculine reaction t... FLORA KIDD MRS. ALLONBY: She told me yesterday, and in quite a loud voice too, that she was only eighteen. It w... OSCAR WILDE He would see her again. He knew he would. Magic bent the world. Pulled it into shape. There were fix... VICTORIA SCHWAB In his or her own way, everyone I saw before me looked happy. Whether they were really happy or just... HARUKI MURAKAMI There was always one. Every village seemed to have one young woman who believed her beauty could som... KERRELYN SPARKS There were plenty of women around who dressed smartly, and plenty more who dressed to impress, but t... HARUKI MURAKAMI She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the cou... KATE CHOPIN As though all the world were a bad joke and she was the only one around who knew the punchline. JACK KETCHUM There was good chemistry between us and I think we formed a good partnership together, with her bein... SEAN BEAN I suppose the part nearest me is Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy. Of course playright Bob Anderso... DEBORAH KERR She was standing, she wasn't drowning. We were in a race. We would have come back and gotten her aft... HEATHER VOET Once upon a time, there was only darkness. And there were monsters vast as worlds who swam in it. LAINI TAYLOR Because we are the only women who are mothers of men." Gorgo: when asked by a woman from... GORGOS She's one strong woman. If it were me, I'd be mad at the world. I don't know how she can go through ... JAZZ COVINGTON Those were her best days, although there was always something feckless about her, something so slack... ANGELA CARTER ... there had been the two little boys. Now they were gone, too. They loved her and called her and s... CATHLEEN SCHINE She felt one thousand years old. She also felt like maybe she was a condescending brat. She wanted h... MAGGIE STIEFVATER Their eyes met at the same instant moment, Therese glancing up from a box she was opening, and the w... PATRICIA HIGHSMITH Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the... CORNELIA FUNKE There were two people who thought they were the greatest band in the world -- Brian Epstein and John... LARRY KANE I’ll always be broken,” I went on. “Because when I came here, no one fixed me. It’s not that... TABITHA FREEMAN Once upon a time there were two sisters. One of them was really, really strong, and one of them wasn... JODI PICOULT How desperate she had been for a storybook ending, and a life to which Gaia would always want to ret... J.K. ROWLING Women. Lord God, I used to follow these girls. THey would come at me, those girls who wer... DOROTHY ALLISON The only difference between having an affair here and having an affair there was that the American m... VANN CHOW When a lot of voices, make up a noise, the man who is silent represents a voice. APURVA GAGLANI There was only one hope she didn't and wouldn't allow herself to hold on to: that if, in almost thir... INGEBORG BACHMANN My mother was a dramatic and egocentric person, and she died before my father, who died of Alzheimer... SUE MILLER [. . .] and in addition to the feeling of being full there was another more terrifying one, as if a ... STEVEN LEVENKRON Love is a growing, or full constant light, And his first minute, after noon, is night. JOHN DONNE Lucy seemed to be imprisoned by a legion of people in her life who always wanted what was right for ... C. JOYBELL C. Once upon a time, they say, there was a girl...there was a boy...there was a person who was in troub... TERRI WINDLING The death of her father and mother and the rich acres of and that had come down to her had set a tra... SHERWOOD ANDERSON All the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one class included all the girls in the wo... LEO TOLSTOY When you talk to women who were working as print journalists or in broadcasting in the '50s, and... ROMOLA GARAI We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. -Anais Nin. ANAIS NIN We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are."
Anais Nin ANAIS NIN It felt like I was living in two worlds. There was one world which was a daylight world and another ... LAURIE MATTHEW People were very cautious, to say the least, because of his reputation as a tough guy who didn't lik... ABDALLAH BAALI Anyone who became a new principal, she would take under her wing and make them feel comfortable. She... ANN CLARK But the thought arrived inside her like a train: Marya Morevna, all in black, here and now, was a po... CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of he... JOHN BERGER Signý knew she would die a thousand deaths upon seeing another woman with him, bearing his children... FARRAH NASEEM She had been waiting for someone to notice her, like, really notice her. She felt that that was the ... ROSE FALL There were musicians that influenced me, but they weren't all women. Teena Marie was a big influ... QUEEN LATIFAH She was completely alone in the world. There was no one at all for her. No one in the world who care... CASSANDRA CLARE She was like a drowning person, flailing, reaching for anything that might save her. Her life was an... JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name... ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so ... ROMAN PAYNE I merged those two words, black and feminist, because I was surrounded by black women who were very ... TONI MORRISON I was never very interested in boys - and there were plenty of them - vying with one another to see ... BETTE DAVIS Remembering those days always aroused a mixture of emotions in her—something akin to, but not quit... NICHOLAS SPARKS Was not Hypatia the greatest philosopher of Alexandria, and a true martyr to the old values of learn... IAIN PEARS Never judge someone's character based on the words of another. Instead, study the motives behind the... SUZY KASSEM I always felt I was living in two worlds. One was the Mexican world, because nearly everybody I knew... GILBERT HERNANDEZ They looked like two children," she told me. And that thought frightened her, because she'd always f... GABRIEL GARCíA MáRQUEZ I once knew a woman who had a reputation as a snob and a gossip. I would avoid her at parties becaus... SUSAN C. YOUNG No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nic... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Women are designed to help men and men are designed to love and honor them SOTONYE ANGA On some days she was able to see both sun and moon at the same time. Like feuding cousins, they hung... CARLA H. KRUEGER It was darn nigh impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you were a... ANN WILSON I'm glad she resigned because there was a group of parents (who) were going to go to the board and a... LUCY BERRY Karou wished she could be the kind of girl who was complete unto herself, comfortable in solitude, s... LAINI TAYLOR They were celebrities, and if anyone thought it was strange that these two women who were so strange... FRANK GALATI And if Francoise then, inspired like a poet with a flood of confused reflections upon bereavement, g... MARCEL PROUST The worst stage was when one could tell she was still awake and almost alert, but she knew that noth... M.T. ANDERSON Teachers were not allowed to beat children as they did in the past, although, Mma Ramotswe reflected... ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH Oberon is the coach of the team. I'm just facilitating a process. We felt that the team had some fun... MAUREEN HALL When I was at home, I felt loved and safe. My sisters were always a safe haven for me. I knew they w... KHLOE KARDASHIAN At one point there were five generations of women in our family. They make the women learn how to co... CONNIE VALDO It was ironic, but when you scratched the surface, most successful men were working for one thing on... CANDACE BUSHNELL She knows Daddy better than I do. I think it's because she's felt since we were children that our Da... JAMES BALDWIN Incredulity and indifference were her only reaction: incredulity, because she could not conceive of ... AYN RAND Smiling wistfully at the thought of her beloved sister, Daisy felt a wave of loneliness sweep over h... LISA KLEYPAS She drank like a drowning man helplessly swallowing sea water, in accordance with some law of nature... YUKIO MISHIMA A beautiful woman should always have at the back of her mind that her ravishing appearance is only a... MICHAEL BASSEY JOHNSON There was another reason [she] took her books whenever they went away. They were her home when she w... CORNELIA FUNKE No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice... H. L. MENCKEN No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice... H.L. MENCKEN My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model. And my mother, who was tryi... TYLER PERRY At the age of fifty-six Eleanor Stoddard was still a beautiful woman. She owned three hotels in Fran... BARBARA TAYLOR BRADFORD I believe that when a woman is given the chance to come to the defense of another woman, that is an ... C. JOYBELL C. Love was something I would not have to worry about - the whole mystery of love, heartbreak songs, an... DOROTHY ALLISON She was a super teacher, ... She was so crippled with arthritis that when the students went to the p... MAGGIE MALONE In the short summer night she learned so much. She would have thought a woman would have died of sha... D.H. LAWRENCE Her mother made her go because her brother, who was stationed in Paris, always complained that there... DARYL NEWCOMB
More Anais Nin
The only abnormality is the incapacity to love. ANAIS NIN The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that ... ANAIS NIN How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it... ANAIS NIN Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds o... ANAIS NIN Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it. ANAIS NIN I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing. ANAIS NIN There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. ANAIS NIN What I cannot love, I overlook. Is that real friendship? ANAIS NIN Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age. ANAIS NIN Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. ANAIS NIN The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ANAIS NIN Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It d... ANAIS NIN The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself. ANAIS NIN Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce t... ANAIS NIN Woman does not forget she needs the fecundator, she does not forget that everything that is born of ... ANAIS NIN If one's conscious life is too rigid, too regimented, then the surface may crack at times, and we ar... ANAIS NIN Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies ... ANAIS NIN It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The wr... ANAIS NIN You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a ... ANAIS NIN The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice... ANAIS NIN Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies... ANAIS NIN We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; ... ANAIS NIN We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; ... ANAIS NIN I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by living, by losing. ANAIS NIN If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then do... ANAIS NIN He does not need opium. He has the gift of reverie. ANAIS NIN I only believe in fire. Life. Fire. Being myself on fire I set others on fire. Never death. Fire and... ANAIS NIN We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are. ANAIS NIN Our psychological reality, which lies below the surface, frightens us because it endlessly surprises... ANAIS NIN Dreams are necessary to life. ANAIS NIN The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ev... ANAIS NIN I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern. ANAIS NIN A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird ... ANAIS NIN And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk... ANAIS NIN I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or... ANAIS NIN Electric flesh-arrows... traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of musi... ANAIS NIN Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdepend... ANAIS NIN Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by... ANAIS NIN People living deeply have no fear of death. ANAIS NIN Jazz is the music of the body ANAIS NIN Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. ANAIS NIN And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bl... ANAIS NIN When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cea... ANAIS NIN There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illuminat... ANAIS NIN A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird ... ANAIS NIN We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. ANAIS NIN I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, w... ANAIS NIN I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot ... ANAIS NIN Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions. ANAIS NIN Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is t... ANAIS NIN Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defe... ANAIS NIN We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. ANAIS NIN Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this mee... ANAIS NIN Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a... ANAIS NIN Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connec... ANAIS NIN If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happines... ANAIS NIN Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, ... ANAIS NIN There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an ... ANAIS NIN We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. -Anais Nin. ANAIS NIN Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to... ANAIS NIN When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others. ANAIS NIN We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. ANAIS NIN We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire,... ANAIS NIN There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the free... ANAIS NIN Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -Anais Nin. ANAIS NIN A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird ... ANAIS NIN The shell is America's most active contribution to the formation of character. A tough hide. Grow it... ANAIS NIN The human father has to be confronted and recognized as human, as man who created a child and then, ... ANAIS NIN My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living. ANAIS NIN I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my fe... ANAIS NIN Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honouring of differences, not simply in the enjoyme... ANAIS NIN We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are."
Anais Nin ANAIS NIN If happiness is the absence of fever then I will never know happiness. For I am posessed by a fever ... ANAIS NIN And the day came for the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk ... ANAIS NIN I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much s... ANAIS NIN I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my fe... ANAIS NIN If all of us acted in unison as I act individually there would be no wars and no poverty. I have mad... ANAIS NIN When one is pretending the entire body revolts ANAIS NIN Too late for changes, too late perhaps for explanations and ideological webs, but the love goes on, ... ANAIS NIN There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the free... ANAIS NIN I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don't know why, some people fill the gaps and others empha... ANAIS NIN We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. ANAIS NIN Last night I wept. I wept because the process by which I have become a woman was painful. I wept bec... ANAIS NIN The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more myst... ANAIS NIN I cannot concentrate all my friendship on any single one of my friends because no one is complete en... ANAIS NIN Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together ANAIS NIN We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection ANAIS NIN I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ... ANAIS NIN Good things happen to those who hustle. ANAIS NIN To change skins, evolve into new cycles, I feel one has to learn to discard. If one changes internal... ANAIS NIN Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive
and it is only by ... ANAIS NIN What I cannot love, I overlook ANAIS NIN It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits..... ANAIS NIN The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and... ANAIS NIN From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to... ANAIS NIN And the day came when the risk to remain in the bud was more painful than the
risk it took to bloom. ANAIS NIN We see not what is, but what we are. ANAIS NIN The risk it takes to remain tight inside the bud is more painful than the risk it takes to blossom. ANAIS NIN Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live. ANAIS NIN She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in t... ANAIS NIN A war regarded as inevitable or even probable, and therefore much prepared for, has a very good chan... ANAIS NIN Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only redu... ANAIS NIN This is a one-off boom. From here on, there will be a bigger diversification of investments. ANAIS FARAJ Market nerves are ragged. Its like Chinese water torture. We thought we'd have resolution from Blix,... ANAIS FARAJ It's hard to be enthusiastic about the consumer goods sector in Europe, which is being squeezed by g... ANAIS FARAJ After the war there is going to be a sharp reckoning, and I suspect markets will have to correct to ... ANAIS FARAJ Economic data is currently pointing to a double-dip recession. ... Investors are feeling bullet-proo... ANAIS FARAJ All I am hearing is that they are getting cooperation from Iraq, ANAIS FARAJ But if this is the victory rally it is going to be short-lived unless we get that perfect war that f... ANAIS FARAJ Perhaps this is the war rally everyone has been hoping for. ANAIS FARAJ The market is taking it as sign that war will be delayed. But I'd rather wait for the Powell rebutta... ANAIS FARAJ I think both in the U.S. and in Europe we are going to have a good first half until the trend in ear... ANAIS FARAJ Emma stared at the ceiling of the hotel room. Her thoughts went over every memorial, each picture, t... ANAIS TORRES She didn’t want to keep talking about him as if everything was okay. Worst of all, she hated sorti... ANAIS TORRES He was supposed to be the first man to tell her that she was beautiful and help her determine who sh... ANAIS TORRES Her mother told her once that her father was sick. That the sickness made him do it. She made it see... ANAIS TORRES She doesn't seem deranged to me? ANAIS TORRES Do you know that most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most wo... ANAIS TORRES I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you do sto... ANAïS NIN We are going to the moon that is not very far. Man has so much farther to go within himself. ANAïS NIN In chaos, there is fertility. ANAïS NIN In the world of the dreamer there was solitude: all the exaltations and joys came in the moment of p... ANAïS NIN Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions. ANAïS NIN Man can never know the loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in the woman's womb only to gather strengt... ANAïS NIN I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much s... ANAïS NIN Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by... ANAïS NIN The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more myst... ANAïS NIN Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shack... ANAïS NIN Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a... ANAïS NIN We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. ANAïS NIN We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. ANAïS NIN Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though wh... ANAïS NIN What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge tha... ANAïS NIN Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave th... ANAïS NIN I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. ANAïS NIN We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. ANAïS NIN Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies ... ANAïS NIN We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; ... ANAïS NIN And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bl... ANAïS NIN I hate men who are afraid of women's strength. ANAïS NIN I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, w... ANAïS NIN The monster I kill every day is the monster of realism. The monster who attacks me every day is dest... ANAïS NIN How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it... ANAïS NIN Societies in decline have no use for visionaries. ANAïS NIN Then at certain moments I remember one of his words and I suddenly feel the sensual woman flaring up... ANAïS NIN She lacks the core of sureness, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on reflections of hersel... ANAïS NIN I don't hear your words: your voice reverberates against my body like another kind of caress, anothe... ANAïS NIN This great handsomeness I took into myself later when he desired me, but I took it as one breathes a... ANAïS NIN His life rushes onward in such torrential rhythm that...only angels and devils can catch the tempo o... ANAïS NIN And sometimes I believe your relentless analysis of June leaves something out, which is your feeling... ANAïS NIN I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness... ANAïS NIN I'm sick of my own romanticism! ANAïS NIN I want to make my own discoveries…….penetrate the evil which attracts me ANAïS NIN What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I... ANAïS NIN I will always be the virgin-prostitute, the perverse angel, the two-faced sinister and saintly woman... ANAïS NIN Sometimes we reveal ourselves when we are least like ourselves. ANAïS NIN There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierar... ANAïS NIN If I fall asleep, it is because I am overloaded. I sleep because one hour with Henry contains five y... ANAïS NIN But I lie. I embellish. My words are not deep enough. They disguise, they conceal. I will not rest u... ANAïS NIN The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will ... ANAïS NIN He, who had done more than any human being to draw her out of the caves of her secret, folded life, ... ANAïS NIN I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the... ANAïS NIN All those who try to unveil the mysteries always have tragic lives. At the end they are always punis... ANAïS NIN You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I... ANAïS NIN Last night I wept. I wept because the process by which I have become woman was painful. I wept becau... ANAïS NIN I see enormous loves growing immense and finally crushing me. ANAïS NIN There is a perfection in everything that cannot be owned. ANAïS NIN You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a ... ANAïS NIN Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy. ANAïS NIN I had a feeling that Pandora's box contained the mysteries of woman's sensuality, so different from ... ANAïS NIN I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my fe... ANAïS NIN There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an ... ANAïS NIN When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, ... ANAïS NIN I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again. ANAïS NIN No man and woman know what will be born in the darkness of their intermingling; so much besides chil... ANAïS NIN The potion drunk by lovers is prepared by no one but themselves. The potion is the sum of one's whol... ANAïS NIN His entire body was pleading for reassurance, and if her whole love was not enough what else could s... ANAïS NIN And it is that which draws me to you, too, for you are the tropics, you have the sun in you, and the... ANAïS NIN The magic beauty of simultaneity, to see the loved one rushing toward you at the same moment you are... ANAïS NIN Every word spoken in the past accumulated forms and colors in the self. What flows through the veins... ANAïS NIN So many broken promises, each day an aborted wish, a lost object, a misplaced unread book, clutterin... ANAïS NIN In this instant of danger they realized they were each other's reason for living, and into this inst... ANAïS NIN When you're in my arms, I know you're mine. But your feet are so swift, so swift, they carry you as ... ANAïS NIN You are that to me, an oasis. You drug me and at the same time you give me strength. ANAïS NIN Love the great narcotic was the revealer in the alchemist's bottle rendering visible the most untrac... ANAïS NIN When you trust, you are tender and delicate, but when you doubt, you are dangerous and destructive ANAïS NIN I gathered poets around me and we all wrote beautiful erotica. As we were condemned to focus only on... ANAïS NIN At first she beckoned and lured one into her world; then, she blurred the passageways, confused all ... ANAïS NIN Paul, Paul, this is the claim you never made, the fervor you never showed. You were so cool and ligh... ANAïS NIN The fascination exerted by one human being over another is not what he emits of his personality at t... ANAïS NIN Ali Baba protects the lovers! Gives them the luck of bandits, and no guilt, for love fills certain p... ANAïS NIN They had reached a perfect moment of human love. They had created a moment of perfect understanding ... ANAïS NIN Every lover could be brought to trial as the murderer of his own love. When something hurts you, sad... ANAïS NIN I have raged at the wall growing between myself and others. I expect intuitive, miraculous understan... ANAïS NIN I looked at it [revolver] as if it reminded me of a crime I had committed with an irrepressible smil... ANAïS NIN At first I protested and rebelled against poetry. I was about to deny my poetic worlds. I was doing ... ANAïS NIN If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happines... ANAïS NIN You cannot save people. You can only love them. ANAïS NIN I must know, he thinks. It must be clear to me. There is a world which is closed to him, a world of ... ANAïS NIN The writer is the duelist who never fights at the stated hour, who gathers up an insult, like anothe... ANAïS NIN