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We Are All Engaged In The Task Of Peeling Off The False Selves, The Programmed Selves, The Selves Created By Our Families, Our Culture, Our Religions. It Is An Enormous Task Because The History Of Women Has Been As Incompletely Told As The History Of Blacks.

-Anais Nin

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We Are All Engaged

Anais Nin

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We Are All Engaged In The Task Of Peeling Off The False Selves, The Programmed Selves, The Selves Created By Our Families, Our Culture, Our Religions. It Is An Enormous Task Because The History Of Women Has Been As Incompletely Told As The History Of Blacks.

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But The Artist Persists Because He Has The Will To Create, And This Is The Magic Power Which Can Transform And Transfigure And Transpose And Which Will Ultimately Be Transmitted To Others.

I Either Eat Too Much Or Starve Myself. Sleep For 14 Hours Or Have Insomniac Nights. Fall In Love Very Hard Or Hate Passionately. I Don't Know What Grey Is. I Never Did.

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She Acquired The Certainty Of The Expansion Of Time By Depth Of Emotion, Range And Infinite Multiplicity Of Experience.

Each Contact With A Human Being Is So Rare, So Precious, One Should Preserve It.

Instead Of Answering Her As Soon As He Saw Her Hair Grow Electric, Her Face More Vivid, Her Eyes Like Lightning, Her Body Restless And Jerky Like A Racehorse’s, He Retired Behind This Wall Of Objective Understanding, This Gentle Testing And Acceptance Of Her, Just As One Watches An Animal In The Zoo And Smiles At His Antics, But Is Not Drawn Into This Mood. It Was This Which Left Lilith In A State Of Isolation - Indeed, Like A Wild Animal In An Absolute Desert.

I Want To Love You Wildly. I Don’t Want Words, But Inarticulate Cries, Meaningless, From The Bottom Of My Most Primitive Being, That Flow From My Belly Like Honey. A Piercing Joy, That Leaves Me Empty, Conquered, Silenced.

New York Has An Electronic Heart.

Your Eyes Make Me Shy

Love Never Dies A Natural Death. It Dies Because We Don't Know How To Replenish Its Source. It Dies Of Blindness And Errors And Betrayals. It Dies Of Illness And Wounds; It Dies Of Weariness, Of Witherings, Of Tarnishings.

He Was Jealous Of Her Future, And She Of His Past.

The Personal Life Deeply Lived Always Expands Into Truths Beyond Itself.

Luxury Is Not A Necessity To Me, But Beautiful And Good Things Are.

He Has, Like Me, A Sense Of Smell. I Let Him Inhale Me, Then I Slip Away.

The Complaints Of The Child In Us Will Never Cease Lamenting Until It Is Consoled, Answered, Understood. Only Then Will It Lie Still In Us, Like Our Fears. It Will Die In Peace And Leave Us What The Child Leaves To The Man - The Sense Of Wonder.

I Don’t Really Want To Become Normal, Average, Standard. I Want Merely To Gain In Strength, In The Courage To Live Out My Life More Fully, Enjoy More, Experience More. I Want To Develop Even More Original And More Unconventional Traits

In My Dreams I Sleep With Everybody.

Travel Is Seeking The Lost Paradise. It Is The Supreme Illusion Of Love.

I'm Awaiting A Lover. I Have To Be Rent And Pulled Apart And Live According To The Demons And The Imagination In Me. I'm Restless. Things Are Calling Me Away. My Hair Is Being Pulled By The Stars Again.

Tranquillity Is Contagious, Peace Is Contagious. One Only Thinks Of The Contagiousness Of Illness, But There Is The Contagion Of Serenity And Joy.

In The World Of The Dreamer There Was Solitude: All The Exaltations And Joys Came In The Moment Of Preparation For Living. They Took Place In Solitude.

My Ideas Usually Come Not At My Desk Writing But In The Midst Of Living.

If One's Conscious Life Is Too Rigid, Too Regimented, Then The Surface May Crack At Times, And We Are Unprepared For The Strange Emotions Or Sensations We Experience.

It Is Difficult To Live With The Pure. They Do Not Condemn You; They Forgive You. This Forgiveness Is More Terrible Than A Judgment.

Only When The Poet And The Scientist Work In Unison Will We Have Living Experiences And Knowledge Of The Marvels Of The Universe As They Are Being Discovered.

The Love Of Only One Man Or One Woman Is An Enclosure.

I Write Emotional Algebra.

Things Aren't The Way They Are, They're The Way You Are

Beware Of Allowing A Tactless Word, A Rebuttal, A Rejection To Obliterate The Whole Sky

A Big Enough Artist, I Say, Can Eat Anything, Must Eat Everything And Then Alchemize It. Only The Feeble Writer Is Afraid Of Expansion.

Through Love, Through Friendship, A Heart Lives More Than One Life.

Life Shrinks Or Expands In Proportion To One's Courage.

I Love Her For What She Has Dared To Be, For Her Hardness, Her Cruelty, Her Egoism, Her Perverseness, Her Demoniac Destructiveness. She Would Crush Me To Ashes Without Hesitation. She Is A Personality Created To The Limit. I Worship Her Courage To Hurt, And I Am Willing To Be Sacrificed To It. She Will Add The Sum Of Me To Her. She Will Be June Plus All That I Contain.

I Have So Strong A Sense Of Creation, Of Tomorrow, That I Cannot Get Drunk, Knowing I Will Be Less Alive, Less Well, Less Creative The Next Day.

We Are Cruel When Someone Refuses To Play The Role In Which We Have Cast Him. We Judge A Person Only According To His Relationship Towards Us.

Every Individual Is Representative Of The Whole . . . And Should Be Intimately Understood, And This Would Give A Far Greater Understanding Of Mass Movements And Sociology.

Women Always Think That When They Have My Shoes, My Dress, My Hairdresser, My Makeup, It Will All Work The Same Way. They Do Not Conceive Of The Witchcraft That Is Needed. They Do Not Know That I Am Not Beautiful But That I Only Appear To Be At Certain Moments.

If You Do Not Breathe Through Writing, If You Do Not Cry Out In Writing, Or Sing In Writing, Then Don't Write, Because Our Culture Has No Use For It.

He, Who Had Done More Than Any Human Being To Draw Her Out Of The Caves Of Her Secret, Folded Life, Now Threw Her Down Into Deeper Recesses Of Fear And Doubt. The Fall Was Greater Than She Had Ever Known, Because She Had Ventured So Far Into Emotion And Had Abandoned Herself To It.

Worlds Self Made Are So Full Of Monsters And Demons.

I Was Thinking Of My Patients, And How The Worst Moment For Them Was When They Discovered They Were Masters Of Their Own Fate. It Was Not A Matter Of Bad Or Good Luck. When They Could No Longer Blame Fate, They Were In Despair.

People Who Want A Sane, Static, Measurable World Take The First Aspect Of An Event Or Person And Stick To It, With An Almost Self-protective Obstinacy, Or By A Natural Limitation Of Their Imaginations. They Do Not Indulge In Either Deepening Or Magnifying.

You Live Out The Confusions Until They Become Clear.

The Struggle To Emerge Out Of The Past, Clean Of Memories; The Inadequacy Of Our Hearts To Cut Life Into Separate And Final Portions; The Pain Of This Constant Ambivalence And Interrelation Of Emotions; The Hunger For Frontiers Against Which We Might Learn As Upon Closed Doors Before We Proceed Forward; The Struggle Against Diffusion, New Beginnings, Against Finality In Acts Without Finality Or End, In Our Cursedly Repercussive Being.

The Way To Recognize A Dead Word Is That It Exudes Boredom.

He Understands My Pity For His Ridiculous, Humiliating Physical Necessity.

Great Repressions Create Dualities.

We Don't See Things As They Are, We See Them As We Are.

The Most Important Human Endeavor Is The Striving For Morality In Our Actions. Our Inner Balance And Even Our Very Existence Depend On It. Only Morality In Our Actions Can Give Beauty And Dignity To Life. Albert Einstein 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.

Don't Let One Cloud Obliterate The Whole Sky.

Positive Thinking

Nature Forms Us For Ourselves, Not For Others; To Be, Not To Seem.

Life Is Truly Known Only To Those Who Suffer, Lose, Endure Adversity And Stumble From Defeat To Defeat.

We Do Not Grow Absolutely, Chronologically. We Grow Sometimes In One Dimension, And Not In Another, Unevenly. We Grow Partially. We Are Relative. We Are Mature In One Realm, Childish In Another. The Past, Present, And Future Mingle And Pull Us Backward, Forward, Or Fix Us In The Present. We Are Made Of Layers, Cells, Constellations.

Dreams Are Essential To Life.

Out Of The Red And Silver And The Long Cry Of Alarm To The Poet Who Survives In All Human Beings, As The Child Survives In Him; To This Poet She Threw An Unexpected Ladder In The Middle Of The City And Ordained, 'climb!

Asia Discovered Two Remedies For The Cruelty Of Man, Art And Religion. America Discarded Both And Is Drowning In Hate And Aggressivity.

Why One Writes Is A Question I Can Answer Easily, Having So Often Asked It Of Myself. I Believe One Writes Because One Has To Create A World In Which One Can Live. I Could Not Live In Any Of The Worlds Offered To Me - The World Of My Parents, The World Of War, The World Of Politics. I Had To Create A World Of My Own, Like A Climate, A Country, An Atmosphere In Which I Could Breathe, Reign, And Recreate Myself When Destroyed By Living. That, I Believe, Is The Reason For Every Work Of Art.

What You Burnt, Broke, And Tore Is Still In My Hands. I Am The Keeper Of Fragile Things And I Have Kept Of You What Is Indissoluble.

I Was Stirred Only Like A Leaf In The Wind, That Is All. . .

Leaves In The Wind

Compassion For Our Parents Is The True Sign Of Maturity.

Art Is The Method Of Levitation, In Order To Separate One's Self From Enslavement By The Earth.

The Source Of Sexual Power Is Curiosity, Passion. You Are Watching Its Little Flame Die Of Asphyxiation. Sex Does Not Thrive On Monotony. Without Feeling, Inventions, Moods, No Surprises In Bed. Sex Must Be Mixed With Tears, Laughter, Words, Promises, Scenes, Jealousy, Envy, All Of The Spices Of Fear, Foreign Travel, New Faces, Novels, Stories, Dreams, Fantasies, Music, Dancing, Opium, Wine.

He Was Now In That State Of Fire That She Loved. She Wanted To Be Burnt.

Inspirational Love

If You Are Terribly Truthful, The Ground Will Always Move From Under You, And You Will Have To Shift With The Constantly Shifting Truth.

Anxiety Is Loves Greatest Killer.

There Is No Denying That We Are Suffering From A Collective Neurosis And The Novel Which Does Not Face This Is Not A Novel Of Our Time.

The Final Lesson A Writer Learns Is That Everything Can Nourish The Writer.

I'm Restless. Things Are Calling Me Away. My Hair Is Being Pulled By The Stars Again. AnaÏs Nin, Fire: From "a Journal Of Love" The Unexpurgated Diary Of Anaïs Nin, 1934-1938 For Me, The Adventures Of The Mind, Each Inflection Of Thought, Each Movement, Nuance, Growth, Discovery, Is A Source Of Exhilaration.

The Monster I Kill Every Day Is The Monster Of Realism. The Monster Who Attacks Me Every Day Is Destruction. Out Of The Duel Comes The Transformation. I Turn Destruction Into Creation Over And Over Again.

Everything With Me Is Either Worship And Passion Or Pity And Understanding. I Hate Rarely, Though When I Hate. I Hate Murderously.

I See Enormous Loves Growing Immense And Finally Crushing Me.

When I Am Most Deeply Rooted, I Feel The Wildest Desire To Uproot Myself.

When I Stand At The Top Of The Champs-elysées, With Its Chestnut Trees In Flower, Its Undulations Of Shining Cars, Its White Spaciousness, I Feel As If I Were Biting Into A Utopian Fruit, Something Velvety And Lustrous And Rich And Vivid.

When You Make A World Tolerable For Yourself, You Make A World Tolerable For Others.

I Miss The Animal Buoyancy Of New York, The Animal Vitality. I Did Not Mind That It Had No Meaning And No Depth.

Destruction Is Ultimately Self-destruction.

Self Destruction

Jeanne, I Fell Asleep Among The Paintings, Where I Could Sit For Many Days Worshipping Your Portrait. I Fell In Love With Your Portrait, Jeanne, Because It Will Never Change. I Have Such A Fear Of Seeing You Grow Old, Jeanne, I Fell In Love With An Unchanging You That Will Never Be Taken Away From Me. I Was Wishing You Would Die, So That No One Could Take You Away From Me, And I Would Love The Painting Of You As You Would Look Eternally.

The Only Transformer And Alchemist That Turns Everything Into Gold Is Love. The Only Magic Against Death, Aging, Ordinary Life, Is Love.

Jazz Is The Expression Of America's Romantic Self, Its Sensual Potency, Its Lyrical Force.

The Final Lesson A Writer Learns Is That Everything Can Nourish The Writer. The Dictionary, A New Word, A Voyage, An Encounter, A Talk On The Street, A Book, A Phrase Learned.

While Analyzing So Many People I Realized The Constant Need Of A Mother, Or A Father, Or A God (the Same Thing) Is Really Immaturity. It Is A Childish Need, A Human Need, But So Universal That I Can See How It Gave Birth To All Religions.

We Speak Of The Masculine And The Feminine, But They Are The Wrong Labels. It Is Really More A Matter Of Poetry Versus Intellectualization.

We Travel, Some Of Us Forever, To Seek Other States, Other Lives, Other Souls.

All Those Who Try To Unveil The Mysteries Always Have Tragic Lives. At The End They Are Always Punished.

Jazz Is The Music Of The Body. The Breath Comes Through Brass. It Is The Body's Breath, And The Strings' Wails And Moans Are Echoes Of The Body's Music. It Is The Body's Vibrations Which Ripple From The Fingers. And The Mystery Of The Withheld Theme, Known To Jazz Musicians Alone, Is Like The Mystery Of Our Secret Life. We Give To Others Only Peripheral Improvisations.

You Carry Away With You A Reflection Of Me, A Part Of Me. I Dreamed You; I Wished For Your Existence. You Will Always Be A Part Of My Life. If I Love You, It Must Be Because We Shared, At Some Moment, The Same Imaginings, The Same Madness, The Same Stage.

His Life Rushes Onward In Such Torrential Rhythm That...only Angels And Devils Can Catch The Tempo Of It.

New York Seems Conducted By Jazz, Animated By It. It Is Essentially A City Of Rhythm.

Eroticism Is One Of The Basic Means Of Self-knowledge, As Indispensable As Poetry.

We Also Write To Heighten Our Own Awareness Of Life... We Write To Taste Life Twice, In The Moment, And In Retrospection... We Write To Be Able To Transcend Our Life, To Reach Beyond It...to Teach Ourselves To Speak With Others, To Record The Journey Into The Labyrinth. We Write To Expand Our World When We Feel Strangled, Or Constricted, Or Lonely... When I Don't Write, I Feel My World Shrinking... I Feel I Lose My Fire And My Color.

Reality Doesn’t Impress Me. I Only Believe In Intoxication, In Ecstasy, And When Ordinary Life Shackles Me. I Escape, One Way Or Another. No More Walls.

Experience Teaches Acceptance Of The Imperfect As Life.

I Want To Live Darkly And Richly In My Femaleness.

Empowering Women

The Dangerous Time When Mechanical Voices, Radios, Telephones, Take The Place Of Human Intimacies, And The Concept Of Being In Touch With Millions Brings A Greater And Greater Poverty In Intimacy And Human Vision.

I Looked At It [revolver] As If It Reminded Me Of A Crime I Had Committed With An Irrepressible Smile Such As Rises Sometimes To People’s Lips In The Face Of Great Catastrophes Which Are Beyond Their Grasp, The Smile That Comes At Times On Certain Women’s Faces While They Are Saying They Regret The Harm They Have Done. It Is The Smile Of Nature Quietly And Proudly Asserting Its Natural Right To Kill.

Mature People Relate To Each Other Without The Need To Merge.

Nothing Endures Unless It Has First Been Transposed Into A Myth, And The Great Advantage Of Myths Is That They Are Ladies With Portable Roots.

Coming Near Him Like A Ballet Dancer She Took A Leap Towards Him, And He, Frightened By Her Vehemence, And Fearing That She Would Crash Against Him, Instinctively Became Absolutely Rigid, And She Felt Herself Embracing A Statue.

The Best Way To Remember A Beautiful City Or A Beautiful Painting Is To Eat Something While You Are Looking At It. The Flavor Really Helps The Image To Penetrate The Body. It Fixes It As Lacquer Does A Drawing.

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.

It Is In The Movements Of Emotional Crisis That Human Beings Reveal Themselves Most Accurately.

I'm Sick Of My Own Romanticism!

Living Never Wore One Out So Much As The Effort Not To Live.

You Must Not Fear, Hold Back, Count Or Be A Miser With Your Thoughts And Feelings. It Is Also True That Creation Comes From An Overflow, So You Have To Learn To Intake, To Imbibe, To Nourish Yourself And Not Be Afraid Of Fullness. The Fullness Is Like A Tidal Wave Which Then Carries You, Sweeps You Into Experience And Into Writing.

Houses Turn To Corpses Overnight When We Cease To Live And Love In Them.

I Will Not Be Just A Tourist In The World Of Images, Just Watching Images Passing By Which I Cannot Live In, Make Love To, Possess As Permanent Sources Of Joy And Ecstasy.

We Are Never Trapped Unless We Choose To Be.

..he Made Me Understand Something Very Important. Whether Because I Am A Latin, Or Because I Am A Neurotic, I Have A Need Of Gestures. I Am Myself Expressive, Demonstrative; Every Feeling I Have Takes On Expression: Words, Gestures, Signs, Letters, Articulateness Or Action. I Need This In Others.

She Makes Use Of The Soft Of The Bread For A Napkin. She Falls Asleep At Times With Shoes On, On Unmade Beds. When A Little Money Comes In, June Buys Delicacies, Strawberries In The Winter, Caviar And Bath Salts.

To Lie, Of Course, Is To Engender Insanity.

Convalescence. Such An Utter Weakness That You Lie Like An Animal Hibernating, Playing Possum. You Float. You Are Adrift. Every Current Is Stronger Than You.

Life Is A Process Of Becoming, A Combination Of States We Have To Go Through. Where People Fail Is That They Wish To Elect A State And Remain In It. This Is A Kind Of Death.

If All Of Us Acted In Unison As I Act Individually There Would Be No Wars And No Poverty. I Have Made Myself Personally Responsible For The Fate Of Every Human Being Who Has Come My Way.

Talk—half-talk, Phrases That Had No Need To Be Finished, Abstractions, Chinese Bells Played On With Cotton-tipped Sticks, Mock Orange Blossoms Painted On Porcelain. The Muffled, Close, Half-talk Of Soft-fleshed Women. The Men She Had Embraced, And The Women, All Washing Against The Resonance Of My Memory. Sound Within Sound, Scene Within Scene, Woman Within Woman—like Acid Revealing An Invisible Script. One Woman Within Another Eternally, In A Far-reaching Procession, Shattering My Mind Into Fragments, Into Quarter Tones Which No Orchestral Baton Can Ever Make Whole Again.

The City Was Asleep On Its Right Side And Shaking With Violent Nightmares. Long Puffs Of Snoring Came Out Of The Chimneys. Its Feet Were Sticking Out Because The Clouds Did Not Cover It Altogether. There Was A Hole In Them And The White Feathers Were Falling Out. The City Had Untied All Its Bridges Like So Many Buttons To Feel At Ease. Wherever There Was A Lamplight The City Scratched Itself Until It Went Out.

When I Hear Of People Who Weary Of Each Other, I Believe It Is Because They Have Sought Virtues In Themselves Alone, Attractions Of Physical Beauty. Have They Based Their Love On Each Other's Thoughts? Who Can Weary Of Thoughts Which Change Every Day?

Violence Is A Symptom Of Impotence.

I Palliate The Sufferings Of Others. Yes I See Myself As Softening The Blows, Dissolving Acids, Neutralizing Poisons, Every Moment Of The Day. I Try To Fulfill The Wishes Of Others, To Perform Miracles. I Exert Myself Performing Miracles.

Suffering Of Others

I Did Not Feel Drawn To Huxley. He Was Beautiful Physically But Again Without Vibrations Or Sensory Antennae... And I Had A Painful Impression Of A Psychic Blindness. With All His Science And Knowledge, In The Mystic World He Blundered.

We Did Not Touch Each Other. We Were Both Leaning Over The Abyss.

I Want To Make My Own Discoveries…….penetrate The Evil Which Attracts Me

At First I Protested And Rebelled Against Poetry. I Was About To Deny My Poetic Worlds. I Was Doing Violence To My Illusions With Analysis, Science, And Learning Henry’s Language, Entering Henry’s World. I Wanted To Destroy By Violence And Animalism My Tenuous Fantasies And Illusions And My Hypersensitivity. A Kind Of Suicide. The Ignominy Awakened Me. Then June Came And Answered The Cravings Of My Imagination And Saved Me. Or Perhaps She Killed Me, For Now I Am Started On A Course Of Madness.

Death From Disillusion Is Not Instantaneous, And There Are No Mercy Killers For The Disillusioned.

I Have No Fear Of God, And Yet Fear Keeps Me Awake At Night,fear Of The Devil. And If I Believe In The Devil, I Must Believe In God. And If Evil Is Abhorrent To Me, I Must Be A Saint. Henry, Save Me From Beatification, From The Horrors Of Static Perfection. Precipitate Me Into The Inferno.

To Love And To Labor Is The Sum Of Living.

You Cannot Save People. You Can Only Love Them.

The Failures Are Not Due To Any Injustice, But To An Inner Defect. It Is Always Caused By The Person Himself. Yes, I Know, You Think You Are Doing An Act Of Justice. But They Will Only Suck You Dry, Wear Out Your Energy, Nourish Themselves On Your Ideas. After Being The Most Compassionate Man In The World, I Say To You Today: Let The Weak Ones Die, Let Them Commit Suicide.

The Source Of Sexual Power Is Curiosity, Passion. You Are Watching Its Little Flame Die Of Asphyxiation.

The Truly Faithless One Is The One Who Makes Love To Only A Fraction Of You. And Denies The Rest.

I Only Believe In Fire. Life. Fire. Being Myself On Fire I Set Others On Fire. Never Death. Fire And Life.

Some People Read To Confirm Their Own Hopelessness. Others Read To Be Rescued From It.

The Unconscious Can Become Destructive If It Is Disregarded And Thwarted.

Guilt Is The One Burden Human Beings Can't Bear Alone.

I Love Your Silences, They Are Like Mine.

But I Lie. I Embellish. My Words Are Not Deep Enough. They Disguise, They Conceal. I Will Not Rest Until I Have Told Of My Descent Into A Sensuality Which Was As Dark, As Magnificent, As Wild, As My Moments Of Mystic Creation Have Been Dazzling, Ecstatic, Exalted.

For The Neurotic, The Merging Of The Subconscious And The Conscious May Be Risky, Just As It Is For The Users Of Drugs. But For The Writer Who Is Aware Of The Way In Which This Connection Exists In Reality And Nourishes Creativity, The Sooner He Can Achieve A Synthesis Among Intellect, Emotion, And Instinct, The Sooner His Work Will Be Integrated.

Someone Told Me The Delightful Story Of The Crusader Who Put A Chastity Belt On His Wife And Gave The Key To His Best Friend For Safekeeping, In Case Of His Death. He Had Ridden Only A Few Miles Away When His Friend, Riding Hard, Caught Up With Him, Saying 'you Gave Me The Wrong Key!

I Am Aware Of Being In A Beautiful Prison, From Which I Can Only Escape By Writing.

If I Fall Asleep, It Is Because I Am Overloaded. I Sleep Because One Hour With Henry Contains Five Years Of My Life, And One Phrase, One Caress Answers The Expectations Of A Hundred Nights. When I Hear Him Laugh, I Say, "i Have Heard Rabelais.". And I Swallow His Laughter Like Bread And Wine.

I Want To Be A Writer Who Reminds Others That These Moments Exist; I Want To Prove That There Is Infinite Space, Infinite Meaning, Infinite Dimension

The Possession Of Knowledge Does Not Kill The Sense Of Wonder And Mystery. There Is Always More Mystery.

I Am Lonely, Yet Not Everybody Will Do. I Don't Know Why, Some People Fill The Gaps And Others Emphasize My Loneliness. In Reality Those Who Satisfy Me Are Those Who Simply Allow Me To Live With My ''idea Of Them.

Poetry Is The Alchemy Which Teaches Us To Convert Ordinary Materials Into Gold.

To Think Of Him In The Middle Of The Day Lifts Me Out Of Ordinary Living.

Nowhere Is Inhumanity More Revealed Than In Hospitals.

[on Paris:] A City Never Entirely Known, Yet Which Gives You The Feeling Of Intimacy, Of Possessing It Intimately.

Either One Fails In One's Art Or In One's Life.

If I Love You It Means We Share The Same Fantasies, The Same Madnesses

I Looked Upon A Clock To Find The Truth. The Hours Were Passing Like Ivory Chess Figures, Striking Piano Notes, And The Minutes Raced On Wires Mounted Like Tin Soldiers. Hours Like Tall Ebony Women With Gongs Between Their Legs, Tolling Continuously So That I Could Not Count Them. I Heard The Rolling Of My Heart-beats; I Heard The Footsteps Of My Dreams, And The Beat Of Time Was Lost Among Them Like The Face Of Truth.

My First Vision Of Earth Was Water Veiled. I Am Of The Race Of Men And Women Who See All Things Through This Curtain Of Sea And My Eyes Are The Color Of Water.

You Marry The Day You Realize The Human Defects Of Your Love.

The Morning I Got Up To Begin This Book I Coughed. Something Was Coming Out Of My Throat: It Was Strangling Me. I Broke The Thread Which Held It And Yanked It Out. I Went Back To Bed And Said: I Have Just Spat Out My Heart.

The Dream Has To Be Translated Into Reality.

The Earth Is Heavy And Opaque Without Dreams.

Also, I Do Not Like The Companionship Of Women. They Are Petty And Personal. They Hang On To Their Mysteries And Secrets, They Act And Pretend. I Like The Character Of Men Better.

I Needed To Live, But I Also Needed To Record What I Lived.

I Cannot Concentrate All My Friendship On Any Single One Of My Friends Because No One Is Complete Enough In Himself.

Cute Best Friend

Analysis Does Not Take Into Account The Creative Products Of Neurotic Desires.

America Hates The Artist. It Will Not Admit: The Artist Is My Soul And I Want To Kill Off My Soul.

Willingness To Explore Everything Is A Sign Of Strength. The Weak Ones Have Prejudices. Prejudices Are A Protection.

My Diary Seems To Keep Me Whole.

Jazz Is The Music Of The Body.

I Want To Live Darkly And Richly In My Femaleness. I Want A Man Lying Over Me, Always Over Me. His Will, His Pleasure, His Desire, His Life, His Work, His Sexuality The Touchstone, The Command, My Pivot. I Don’t Mind Working, Holding My Ground Intellectually, Artistically; But As A Woman, Oh, God, As A Woman I Want To Be Dominated

The Richest Source Of Creation Is Feeling, Followed By A Vision Of Its Meaning.

I Do Not Want To Be The Leader. I Refuse To Be The Leader. I Want To Live Darkly.

I Walk Ahead Of Myself In Perpetual Expectancy Of Miracles.

In Creation Alone There Is The Possibility Of Perfection.

The Human Father Has To Be Confronted And Recognized As Human, As Man Who Created A Child And Then, By His Absence, Left The Child Fatherless And Then Godless.

There Are Only Two Kinds Of Freedom In The World; The Freedom Of The Rich And Powerful, And The Freedom Of The Artist And The Monk Who Renounces Possessions.

Then At Certain Moments I Remember One Of His Words And I Suddenly Feel The Sensual Woman Flaring Up, As If Violently Caressed. I Say The Word To Myself, With Joy. It Is At Such A Moment That My True Body Lives.

I Walked Into My Own Book, Seeking Peace. It Was Night, And I Made A Careless Movement Inside The Dream; I Turned Too Brusquely The Corner And I Bruised Myself Against My Madness.

To Withhold From Living Is To Die ... The More You Give Of Yourself To Life The More Life Nourishes You.

I Take Pleasure In My Transformations. I Look Quiet And Consistent, But Few Know How Many Women There Are In Me.

Dreams Are Necessary To Life.

I Will Always Be The Virgin-prostitute, The Perverse Angel, The Two-faced Sinister And Saintly Woman.

Since Desire Always Goes Towards That Which Is Our Direct Opposite, It Forces Us To Love That Which Will Make Us Suffer.

I Really Believe That If I Were Not A Writer, Not A Creator, Not An Experimenter, I Might Have Been A Very Faithful Wife. I Think Highly Of Faithfulness. But My Temperament Belongs To The Writer, Not To The Woman

I Am Apparently Gentle, Unstable, And Full Of Pretenses. I Will Die A Poet Killed By The Nonpoets, Will Renounce No Dream, Resign Myself To No Ugliness, Accept Nothing Of The World But The One I Made Myself. I Wrote, Lived, Loved Like Don Quixote, And On The Day Of My Death I Will Say: ‘excuse Me, It Was All A Dream,’ And By That Time I May Have Found One Who Will Say: ‘not At All, It Was True, Absolutely True.’

We Cannot Cure The Evils Of Politics With Politics.

At A Lecture I Am Asked To Pronounce My Name Three Times. I Try To Be Slow And Emphatic, "anaïs - Anaïs - Anaïs. You Just Say "anna" And Then Add "ees," With The Accent On The "ees."

Why Do I Doubt Her? Perhaps She Is Just Very Sensitive, And Hypersensitive People Are False When Others Doubt Them; They Waver. And One Thinks Them Insincere. Yet I Want To Believe Her. At The Same Time It Does Not Seem So Very Important That She Should Love Me. It Is Not Her Role. I Am So Filled With My Love Of Her. And At The Same Time I Feel That I Am Dying. Our Love Would Be Death. The Embrace Of Imaginings.

The Imagination Is Far Better At Inventing Tortures Than Life Because The Imagination Is A Demon Within Us And It Knows Where To Strike, Where It Hurts. It Knows The Vulnerable Spot, And Life Does Not, Our Friends And Lovers Do Not, Because Seldom Do They Have The Imagination Equal To The Task.

We Don't See Things As They Are, We See Them As We ... Believe Me Naïve Or Innocent, Who Has The Courage To Treat Me Like A Woman.

I Love Man As Creator, Lover, Husband, Friend, But Man The Father I Do Not Trust. I Do Not Believe In Man As Father. I Do Not Trust Man As Father.

They Courted The Face On The Screen, The Face Of Translucence, The Face Of Wax On Which Men Found It Possible To Imprint The Image Of Their Fantasy.

Will You Come Down And Kiss Me Good Night?

What Can I Do With My Happiness? How Can I Keep It, Conceal It, Bury It Where I May Never Lose It? I Want To Kneel As It Falls Over Me Like Rain, Gather It Up With Lace And Silk, And Press It Over Myself Again.

Memory Is A Great Betrayer.

You Fall In Love With People's Minds.

Falling In Love

The Man Who Was Once Starved May Revenge Himself Upon The World Not By Stealing Just Once, Or By Stealing Only What He Needs, But By Taking From The World An Endless Toll In Payment Of Something Irreplaceable, Which Is The Lost Faith.

Myself ... Is Merely An Instrument To Connect Life And A Myth

I Hate Men Who Are Afraid Of Women's Strength.

Solitude May Rust Your Words.

Poetry, Which Is Our Relation To The Senses, Enables Us To Retain A Living Relationship To All Things. It Is The Quickest Means Of Transportation To Reach Dimensions Above Or Beyond The Traps Set By The So-called Realists. It Is A Way To Learn Levitation And Travel In Liberated Continents, To Travel By Moonlight As Well As Sunlight.

Anything I Can Not Transform Into Something Marvelous, I Let Go.

Many Couples, Many People, Are Not Living With Real Human Beings, But With Their Ghosts. Who Has Not Followed For Years The Spell Of A Particular Tone Of Voice, From Voice To Voice, As The Fetishist Follows A Beautiful Foot, Scarcely Seeing The Woman Herself? A Voice, A Mouth, An Eye, All Stemming From The Original Fountain Of Our First Desire, Directing It, Enslaving Us, Until We Choose To Unravel The Fatal Web And Free Ourselves.

When I Cannot Bear Outer Pressures Anymore, I Begin To Put Order In My Belongings...as If Unable To Organize And Control My Life, I Seek To Exert This On The World Of Objects.

She Had Lost Herself Somewhere Along The Frontier Between Her Inventions, Her Stories, Her Fantasies And Her True Self. The Boundaries Had Become Effaced, The Tracks Lost, She Had Walked Into Pure Chaos, And Not A Chaos Which Carried Her Like The Galloping Of Romantic Riders In Operas And Legends, But Which Suddenly Revealed The Stage Props: A Papier-mâché Horse.

Create A World, Your World. Alone. Stand Alone. And Then Love Will Come To You, Then It Comes To You.

I See Myself Wrapped In Lies, Which Do Not Seem To Penetrate My Soul, As If They Are Not Really A Part Of Me. They Are Like Costumes.

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H. Rider Haggard

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