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When You Make A World Tolerable For Yourself, You Make A World Tolerable For Others.
-Anais Nin
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When You Make A

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

Understanding the Quote: "when you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world..."

This quote by Anais Nin reflects deeply on the theme of being yourself. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Being Yourself, Tolerance, World, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Anais Nin interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Anais Nin

Anais Nin is celebrated for insightful thoughts on being yourself and tolerance. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 90175
Topic
Being Yourself
Tolerance
World
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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.
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Night
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The Unknown Was My Compass. The Unknown Was My Encyclopedia. The Unnamed Was My Science And Progress.
Progress
Compass
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The Final Lesson A Writer Learns Is That Everything Can Nourish The Writer.
Finals
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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.
Memories
Men
Orange
There Are Very Few Human Beings Who Receive The Truth, Complete And Staggering, By Instant Illumination. Most Of Them Acquire It Fragment By Fragment, On A Small Scale, By Successive Developments, Cellularly, Like A Laborious Mosaic.
Life
Time
Illumination
The Preoccupation Of The Novelist: How To Capture The Living Moments, Was Answered By The Diary. You Write While You Are Alive. You Do Not Preserve Them In Alcohol Until The Moment You Are Ready To Write About Them.
Writing
Alcohol
Live In The Moment
A Leaf Fluttered In Through The Window This Morning, As If Supported By The Rays Of The Sun, A Bird Settled On The Fire Escape, Joy In The Task Of Coffee, Joy Accompanied Me As I Walked.
Love
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Peace
To Mistake Ugliness For Reality Is One Of The Frauds Of The Realistic School [of Writing]. A Hunger For The Unknown And An Aspiration Toward Beauty Were Inseparable From Civilization. In America The Word Art Was Distorted To Mean Artificial.
Art
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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.
Lonely
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Three Or Four Threads May Be Agitated, Like Telegraph Wires, At The Same Time, And If I Were To Tap Them All I Would Reveal Such A Mixture Of Innocence And Duplicity, Generosity And Calculation, Fear And Courage, I Cannot Tell The Whole Truth Simply Because I Would Have To Write Four Journals At Once.
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I, With A Deeper Instinct, Choose A Man Who Compels My Strength, Who Makes Enormous Demands On Me, Who Does Not Doubt My Courage Or My Toughness, Who Does Not Believe Me Naive Or Innocent, Who Has The Courage To Treat Me Like A Woman.
Love
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Worlds Self Made Are So Full Of Monsters And Demons.
Self
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It Takes Courage To Push Yourself To Places You Have Never Been Before... To Test Your 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 Blossom.
Break Through
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Bud
I Had Been Struck By The Analogy Between Neurosis And Romanticism. Romanticism Was Truly A Parallel To Neurosis. It Demanded Of Reality An Illusory World, Love, An Absolute Which It Could Never Obtain, And Thus Destroyed Itself By The Dream.
Dream
Reality
World Love
Asia Discovered Two Remedies For The Cruelty Of Man, Art And Religion. America Discarded Both And Is Drowning In Hate And Aggressivity.
Art
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Stories Are The Only Enchantment Possible, For When We Begin To See Our Suffering As A Story, We Are Saved.
Suffering
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Great Repressions Create Dualities.
Denial
Duality
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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.
Life
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Acapulco In The Sunset Seems Like A Balm; It Enters The Blood Like A Drug After One Inhalation Of The Scent Of Flowers, One Glimpse Of The Bay Iridescent Like Silk, The Sunset Like The Inside Of A Shell, So Much Like The Flesh Of Venus.
Flower
Sunset
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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.
Play
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New York Has An Electronic Heart.
New York
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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.
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His Life Rushes Onward In Such Torrential Rhythm That...only Angels And Devils Can Catch The Tempo Of It.
Angel
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Rhythm
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.
Beautiful
Couple
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If You Can't Create, You Destroy.
Creativity
Destruction
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Since Desire Always Goes Towards That Which Is Our Direct Opposite, It Forces Us To Love That Which Will Make Us Suffer.
Opposites
Suffering
Desire
Each Contact With A Human Being Is So Rare, So Precious, One Should Preserve It.
Thinking
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He Had A Mania For Washing And Disinfecting Himself. . . . For Him The Only Danger Came From The Microbes That Attacked The Body. He Had Not Studied The Microbe Of Conscience Which Eats Into The Soul.
Soul
Body
Danger
Houses Turn To Corpses Overnight When We Cease To Live And Love In Them.
House
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Turns
We Efface An Hour By Passionate Love, Without Twists, Without Aftertaste. When It Is Finished, It Is Not Finished, We Lie Still In Each Other's Arms Lulled By Our Love, By Tenderness -- Sensuality In Which The Whole Being Can Participate.
Lying
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I Will Not Adjust Myself To The World. I Am Adjusted To Myself.
Ordinary World
Ecstasy
Tempo
There Is A Resemblance Between Men And Women, Not A Contrast. When A Man Begins To Recognize His Feeling, The Two Unite. When Men Accept The Sensitive Side Of Themselves, They Come Alive.
Men
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Travel Is Seeking The Lost Paradise. It Is The Supreme Illusion Of Love.
Travel
Paradise
Illusion
The Personal, If It Is Deep Enough, Becomes Universal, Mythical, Symbolic.
Unity
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Symbolic
The Only Abnormality Is The Incapacity To Love.
Love
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Create A World, Your World. Alone. Stand Alone. And Then Love Will Come To You, Then It Comes To You.
World
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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.
Hands
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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.
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Life Shrinks Or Expands In Proportion To One's Courage.
Inspirational
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Write. Write Until It Stops Hurting.
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The Richest Source Of Creation Is Feeling, Followed By A Vision Of Its Meaning.
Feelings
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Ordinary Life Does Not Interest Me. I Seek Only The High Moments. I Am In Accord With The Surrealists, Searching For The Marvelous. 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. But I Am Not Always In What I Call A State Of Grace. I Have Days Of Illuminations And Fevers. I Have Days When The Music In My Head Stops. Then I Mend Socks, Prune Trees, Can Fruits, Polish Furniture. But While I Am Doing This I Feel I Am Not Living.
Illumination
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My Ideas Usually Come Not At My Desk Writing But In The Midst Of Living.
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Tranquillity Is Contagious, Peace Is Contagious. One Only Thinks Of The Contagiousness Of Illness, But There Is The Contagion Of Serenity And Joy.
Happiness
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The Theme Of The Diary Is Always The Personal, But It Does Not Mean Only A Personal Story: It Means A Personal Relationship To All Things And People. The Personal, If It Is Deep Enough, Becomes Universal, Mythical, Symbolic; I Never Generalize, Intellectualise. I See, I Hear, I Feel. These Are My Primitive Elements Of Discovery. Music, Dance, Poetry And Painting Are The Channels For Emotion. It Is Through Them That Experience Penetrates Our Bloodstream.
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Good Things Happen To Those Who Hustle.
Positivity
Nfl
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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.
Horse
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Track
When I Am Most Deeply Rooted, I Feel The Wildest Desire To Uproot Myself.
Desire
Feels
Rooted
The Role Of The Writer Is Not To Say What We Can All Say, But What We Are Unable To Say. Most Of The Writing Today Which Is Called Fiction Contains Such A Poverty Of Language, Such Triteness, That It Is A Shrunken, Diminished World We Enter, Poorer And More Formless Than The Poorest Cripple Deprived Of Ears And Eyes And Tongue. The Writer's Responsibility Is To Increase, Develop Our Senses, Expand Our Vision, Heighten Our Awareness And Enrich Our Articulateness.
Writing
Eye
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There Were Silences In My Head. I Could Abandon Myself Completely To The Pleasure Of Multiple Relationships, To The Beauty Of The Day, To The Joys Of The Day. It Was As If A Cancer In Me Had Ceased Gnawing Me. The Cancer Of Introspection.
Cancer
Silence
Joy
I Don't Mind Working, Holding My Ground Intellectually, Artistically; But As A Woman, Oh, God, As A Woman I Want To Be Dominated
Mind
Want
Submission
Self-destructive Patterns Cause As Much Suffering As Outer Catastrophes.
Self
Suffering
Patterns
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.
Self
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People
I Stopped Loving My Father A Long Time Ago. What Remained Was The Slavery To A Pattern.
Boyfriend
Father
Long
Had I Not Created My Whole World, I Would Certainly Have Died In Other People’s.
Break Up
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One Handles Truths Like Dynamite. Literature Is One Vast Hypocrisy, A Giant Deception, Treachery. All Writers Have Concealed More Than They Revealed.
Truth
Hypocrisy
Deception
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.
Dream
Book
Night
I Have This Weird Obsession About Buying Books And Looking At Them With A Smile, Even If I Won't Read Them Soon. At Least They Are Mine Now.
Book
Buying
Obsession
I Adore The Struggle You Carry In Yourself. I Adore Your Terrifying Sincerity.
Hate
Struggle
Sincerity
When You Possess Light Within, You See It Externally.
Beauty
Light
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The Creative Personality Never Remains Fixed On The First World It Discovers. It Never Resigns Itself To Anything.
Personality
Creative
World
I Take Pleasure In My Transformations. I Look Quiet And Consistent, But Few Know How Many Women There Are In Me.
Looks
Transformation
Quiet
The Cynic Is A Coward. He Foresees All Barrenness So That Barrenness Can Never Surprise Him.
Coward
Surprise
Cynicism
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.
Roots
Firsts
Advantage
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!
Children
Cities
Long
One Handles Truths Like Dynamite.
Truth
Dynamite
Handle
I Prefer By Far The Warmth And Softness To Mere Brilliancy And Coldness. Some People Remind Me Of Sharp Dazzling Diamonds. Valuable But Lifeless And Loveless. Others, Of The Simplest Field Flowers, With Hearts Full Of Dew And With All The Tints Of Celestial Beauty Reflected In Their Modest Petals.
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And The Day Came When The Risk To Remain Tight In A Bud Was More Painful Than The Risk It Took To Blossom.
Inspirational
Life
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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.
Revenge
Men
Needs
I Hate Men Who Are Afraid Of Women's Strength.
Hate
Heart
Independent
The Inner Chambers Of The Soul Are Like The Photographer's Darkroom. Like A Laboratory. One Cannot Stay There All The Time Or It Becomes The Solitary Cell Of The Neurotic.
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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.
Stars
Hair
Imagination
Creation Which Cannot Express Itself Becomes Madness.
Inspirational
Madness
Creation
Too Late For Changes, Too Late Perhaps For Explanations And Ideological Webs, But The Love Goes On, The Love Goes On, Blind To Laws And Warnings And Even To Wisdom And To Fears. And Whatever That Love Is, Perhaps An Illusion Of A New Love, I Want It, I Cant Resist It, My Whole Being Melts In One Kiss, My Knowledge Melts, My Fears Melt, My Blood Dances, My Legs Open.
Love
Kissing
Blood
In Each Studio There Is A Human Being Dressed In The Full Regalia Of His Myth Fearing To Expore A Vulnerable Opening, Spreading Not His Charms But His Defences, Plotting To Disrobe, Somewhere Along The Night-- His Body Without The Aperture Of The Heart Or His Heart With A Door Closed To His Body. Thus Keeping One Compartment For Refuge, One Uninvaded Cell.
Heart
Night
Doors
For Too Many Centuries Women Have Been Being Muses To Artists. I Wanted To Be The Muse, I Wanted To Be The Wife Of The Artist, But I Was Really Trying To Avoid The Final Issue — That I Had To Do The Job Myself.
Jobs
Artist
Issues
Things Aren't The Way They Are, They're The Way You Are
Way
[on Paris:] A City Never Entirely Known, Yet Which Gives You The Feeling Of Intimacy, Of Possessing It Intimately.
Cities
Paris
Giving
Perfection Is Static, And I Am In Full Progress.
Perfection
Progress
Static
We Have Been Poisoned By Fairy Tales.
Marriage
Fairy Tale
Tales
The Woman Will Sit Eternally In The Tall Black Armchair. I Will Be The One Woman You Will Never Have...excessive Living Weighs Down The Imagination: We Will Not Live, We Will Only Write And Talk To Swell The Sails.
Writing
Imagination
Black
The Leaf Fall Of His Words, The Stained Glass Hues Of His Moods, The Rust In His Voice, The Smoke In His Mouth, His Breath On My Vision Like Human Breath Blinding A Mirror.
Fall
Glasses
Mirrors
Again I Take A Taxi To Clichy Address, But Feel That I Do Not Want To Go On Loving Henry More Actively Than He Loves Me (having Realized That Nobody Will Ever Love Me In That Overabundant, Overexpressive, Overthoughtful, Overhuman Way I Love People), And So I Will Wait For Him. So I Ask Taxi Driver To Drop Me At The Galeries Lafayette, Where I Begin To Look For A New Hat And To Shop For Christmas. Pride? I Don't Know. A Kind Of Wise Retreat. I Need People Too Much. So I Bury My Gigantic Defect, My Overflow Of Love, Under Trivialities, Like A Child. I Amuse Myself With A New Hat.
Wise
Children
Pride
I Cheat Him, I Deceive Him, Yet The World Does Not Sink In Sulphur-colored Mists. Madness Conquers. I Can No Longer Put My Mosaics Together. I Just Cry And Laugh.
Laughing
Together
Doe
How Wrong It Is For A Woman To Expect The Man To Build The World She Wants, Rather Than To Create It Herself.
Love
Inspirational
Dream
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.
Giving
Understanding
Individuality
In Creation Alone There Is The Possibility Of Perfection.
Perfection
Creation
Possibility
Love Never Dies A Natural Death. It Dies Because We Don't Know How To Replenish Its Source.
Sad
Broken Heart
Heartbreak
I Spell 'god' With A Small 'g' Because I Do Not Believe In Him, But I Love To Swear By Him.
Believe
Swear
Spells
The Dream Was Always Running Ahead Of Me. To Catch Up, To Live For A Moment In Unison With It, That Was The Miracle.
Love
Running
Dream
He Was Jealous Of Her Future, And She Of His Past.
Jealous
Past
Guilt Is The One Burden Human Beings Can't Bear Alone.
Guilt
Bears
Burden
New York Seems Conducted By Jazz, Animated By It. It Is Essentially A City Of Rhythm.
New York
Cities
Jazz
Violence Is A Symptom Of Impotence.
Violence
Symptoms
Impotence
Everything But Happiness Is Neurosis.
Neurosis
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.
Blow
Suffering Of Others
Miracle
Perhaps A Child, Like A Cat, Is So Much Inside Of Himself That He Does Not See Himself In The Mirror.
Children
Cat
Mirrors
When I First Met Him, He Did Not Care If A Friend Did Not Fit Into His World, Because At That Time His World Had Not Been Born Yet.
World
Care
Firsts
When You Make A World Tolerable For Yourself, You Make A World Tolerable For Others.
Being Yourself
Tolerance
World
For You And For Me The Highest Moment, The Keenest Joy, Is Not When Our Minds Dominate But When We Lose Our Minds, And You And I Both Lose It In The Same Way, Through Love.
Joy
Mind
Way
We Are Never Trapped Unless We Choose To Be.
Trapped
The Diary Taught Me That It Is In The Moments Of Emotional Crisis That Human Beings Reveal Themselves Most Accurately. I Learned To Choose The Heightened Moments Because They Are The Moments Of Revelation.
Emotional
Diaries
Taught
I Despise My Own Hypersensitiveness, Which Requires So Much Reassurance. It Is Certainly Abnormal To Crave So Much To Be Loved And Understood.
Abnormal
Reassurance
Despise
For All Of My Patients Sensuality Is A Giving In To 'the Low Side Of Their Nature.' Puritanism Is Powerful And Distorts Their Life With A Total Anesthesia Of The Senses. If You Atrophy One Sense, You Also Atrophy All The Others, A Sensuous And Physical Connection With Nature, With Art, With Food, With Other Human Beings.
Art
Powerful
Giving
She Had Acquired Some Of His Gypsy Ways, Some Of His Nonchalance, His Bohemian Indiscipline. She Had Swung With Him Into The Disorders Of Strewn Clothes, Spilled Cigarette Ashes, Slipping Into Bed All Dressed, Falling Asleep Thus, Indolence, Timelessness...a Region Of Chaos And Moonlight. She Liked It There.
Fall
Clothes
Bed
The Possession Of Knowledge Does Not Kill The Sense Of Wonder And Mystery. There Is Always More Mystery.
Spiritual
Life Lesson
Knowledge
I Am So Thirsty For The Marvelous That Only The Marvelous Has Power Over Me. Anything I Can Not Transform Into Something Marvelous, I Let Go.
Letting Go
Thirsty
Shackles
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.’
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World
May
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.
Inspiring
Artist
Empowering
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.
Beautiful
Psychics
World
My Diary Seems To Keep Me Whole.
Diaries
Journal
Whole
I Have An Attitude Now That Is Immovable. I Shall Remain Outside Of The World, Beyond The Temporal, Beyond All The Organizations Of The World. I Only Believe In Poetry.
Attitude
Believe
Organization
We Write To Taste Life Twice, In The Moment, And In Retrospection.
Love
Writing
Heart
You Are So Terribly Nimble, So Clever. I Distrust Your Cleverness. You Make A Wonderful Pattern, Everything Is In Its Place, It Looks Convincingly Clear, Too Clear. And Meanwhile, Where Are You? Not On The Clear Surface Of Your Ideas, But You Have Already Sunk Deeper, Into Darker Regions, So That One Only Thinks One Has Been Given All Your Thoughts, One Only Imagines You Have Emptied Yourself In That Clarity. But There Are Layers And Layers - You're Bottomless, Unfathomable. Your Clearness Is Deceptive. You Are The Thinker Who Arouses Most Confusion In Me, Most Doubt, Most Disturbance.
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Thinking
Ideas
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.
Suicide
Men
Thinking
Dreams Are Essential To Life.
Inspirational
Dream
Psychics
Life Is A Full Circle, Widening Until It Joins The Circle Motions Of The Infinite.
Circles
Full Circle
Life Is
Death From Disillusion Is Not Instantaneous, And There Are No Mercy Killers For The Disillusioned.
Killers
Mercy
Disillusioned
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.
Order
World
Pressure
The Shell Is America's Most Active Contribution To The Formation Of Character. A Tough Hide. Grow It Early.
Character
America
Shells
That Is My Essential Reason For Writing, Not For Fame, Not To Be Celebrated After Death, But To Heighten And Create Life All Around Me. I Also Write Because When I Am Writing I Reach The High Moment Of Fusion Sought By The Mystics, The Poets, The Lovers, A Sense Of Communion With The Universe.
Writing
Fusion
Essentials
Where The Myth Fails, Human Love Begins. Then We Love A Human Being, Not Our Dream, But A Human Being With Flaws.
Dream
Flaws
Failing
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."
Names
Trying
Add
The Self Is Merely The Lens Through Which We See Others And The World.
Self
Lenses
World
What We Call Our Destiny Is Truly Our Character And That Character Can Be Altered. The Knowledge That We Are Responsible For Our Actions And Attitudes Does Not Need To Be Discouraging, Because It Also Means That We Are Free To Change This Destiny. One Is Not In Bondage To The Past, Which Has Shaped Our Feelings, To Race, Inheritance, Background. All This Can Be Altered If We Have The Courage To Examine How It Formed Us. We Can Alter The Chemistry Provided We Have The Courage To Dissect The Elements.
Attitude
Character
Mean
I Reserve The Right To Love Many Different People At Once, And To Change My Prince Often.
People
Different
Different Peoples
Although I Love A Rich Life, I Hate An Overcrowded Life. I Believe In Rumination And Lose Half The Beauty Of All Things When I Am Deprived Of The Time To Ruminate.
Time
Hate
Believe
She Acquired The Certainty Of The Expansion Of Time By Depth Of Emotion, Range And Infinite Multiplicity Of Experience.
Expansion
Depth
Emotion
Pain Is Something To Master, Not To Wallow In.
Pain
Masters
The Important Task Of Literature Is To Free Man, Not To Censor Him, And That Is Why Puritanism Was The Most Destructive And Evil Force Which Ever Oppressed People And Their Literature: It Created Hypocrisy, Perversion, Fears, Sterility.
Fear
Men
People
I Am Aware Of Being In A Beautiful Prison, From Which I Can Only Escape By Writing.
Beautiful
Writing
Prison
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.
Dream
Heart
Ivory
Anxiety Is Love's Greatest Killer. It Makes Others Feel As You Might When A Drowning Man Holds On To You. You Want To Save Him, But You Know He Will Strangle You With His Panic.
Love
Life
Marriage
What Is Love But Acceptance Of The Other, Whatever He Is.
Love
Acceptance
What Is Love
We Love Best Those Who Are, Or Act For Us, A Self We Do Not Wish To Be Or Act Out.
Love Is
Self
Wish
I Can’t Let You Go Now. I Want To Go Places With You; Obscure Little Places, Just To Be Able To Say: Here I Came With Her.
Want
Littles
Able
The Body Is An Instrument Which Only Gives Off Music When It Is Used As A Body.
Giving
Body
Used
The Violence And Obscenity Are Left Unadulterated, As Manifestation Of The Mystery And Pain Which Ever Accompanies The Act Of Creation.
Pain
Violence
Mystery
The Frenchman, By Nature, Is Sensuous And Sensitive. He Has Intelligence, Which Makes Him Tired Of Life Sooner Than Other Kinds Of Men. He Is Not Athletic: He Sees The Futility Of The Pursuit Of Fame; The Climate At Times Depresses Him.
Depressing
Tired
Men
The Source Of Sexual Power Is Curiosity, Passion. You Are Watching Its Little Flame Die Of Asphyxiation.
Passion
Flames
Curiosity
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
Space
Want
Dimensions
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.
Lying
Animal
Stronger
Physical Experiences, Lacking The Joys Of Love, Depend On Twists And Perversions Of Pleasure. Abnormal Pleasures Kill The Taste For Normal Ones.
Joy
Twists
Abnormal
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.
Pain
Memories
Struggle
Paris-new York, The Two High Tension Magnetic Poles Between Life, Life Of The Senses, Of The Spirit In Paris, And Life In Action In New York.
New York
Two
Paris
Nowhere Is Inhumanity More Revealed Than In Hospitals.
Inhumanity
Hospitals
Sometimes We Reveal Ourselves When We Are Least Like Ourselves.
Inspirational
Behaviour
Abnormal
Through Love, Through Friendship, A Heart Lives More Than One Life.
Heart
Now That I Am Moving, I Am Afraid. Where Am I Going?
Moving
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.
Science
Poet
Scientist
I Cannot Concentrate All My Friendship On Any Single One Of My Friends Because No One Is Complete Enough In Himself.
Friendship
Cute Best Friend
Enough
I Was Stirred Only Like A Leaf In The Wind, That Is All. . .
Wind
Leafs
Leaves In The Wind
Human Beings Can Reach Such Desperate Solitude That They May Cross A Boundary Beyond Which Words Cannot Serve, And At Such Moments There Is Nothing Left For Them But To Bark.
Solitude
May
Moments
We See Things The Way We Are, Not The Way They Are.
Way
I Believe That Men Are Generally Still A Little Afraid Of The Dark Though The Witches Are All Hung, And Christianity And Candles Have Been Introduced.
Believe
Dark
Men
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.
Life
Cracks
May
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.
Voice
Vision
Poverty
Nothing Too Long Imagined Can Be Perfect In A Wordly Way.
Long
Perfect
Imagination
Analysis Does Not Take Into Account The Creative Products Of Neurotic Desires.
Creative
Desire
Doe
To Love And To Labor Is The Sum Of Living.
Labor
You Live Like This, Sheltered, In A Delicate World, And You Believe You Are Living.
Believe
World
Picnics
I Want To Live Darkly And Richly In My Femaleness.
Sisterhood
Want
Empowering Women
Innocence Was Gone From All Our Acts. Our Habitual State Of Rebellion Became A Serious Political Crime.
Political
Gone
Serious
Mature People Relate To Each Other Without The Need To Merge.
People
Independence
Needs
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.
Beautiful
Drawing
Cities
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.
Writing
Commitment
Culture
To Lie, Of Course, Is To Engender Insanity.
Lying
Insanity
Courses
To Commit Suicide Is Easy. To Live Without A God Is More Difficult. The Drunkenness Of Triumph Is Greater Than The Drunkenness Of Sacrifice.
Suicide
Sacrifice
Triumph
I Know No Joy As Great As A Moment Of Rushing Into A New Love, No Ecstasy Like That Of A New Love.
Rushing
Joy
Moments
Our Love Of Each Other Was Like Two Long Shadows Kissing Without Hope Of Reality.
Kissing
Reality
Two
We Three Belong To The Middle Ages. We Have This Need Of Heroism, And There Is No Place For Such Feelings In Modern Life. That Is Our Tragedy. Once I Wanted To Be A Saint. It Seemed The Only Absolute Act Left To Do, For What Is Most Powerful In Me Is The Craving For Purity, Greatness.
Powerful
Greatness
Feelings
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.
Suffering
Doe
Neurosis
If What Proust Says Is True, That Happiness Is The Absence Of Fever, Then I Will Never Know Happiness. For I Am Possessed By A Fever For Knowledge, Experience, And Creation.
Happiness
Knowledge
Fever
Beware Of Allowing A Tactless Word, A Rebuttal, A Rejection To Obliterate The Whole Sky
Sky
Rejection
Rebuttal
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.
Zoos
Wall
Eye
I Am A Failure As A Writer. The Publishers Won't Publish Me, The Bookshops Won't Carry My Books, The Critics Won't Write About Me. I Am Excluded From All Anthologies, And Completely Ignored.
Book
Writing
Ignored
... Only Love Begets Love.
Love Is
Only Love
Begets
Life Is So Fluid That One Can Only Hope To Capture The Living Moment, To Capture It Alive And Fresh ... Without Destroying That Moment.
Alive
Life Is
Moments
In My Dreams I Sleep With Everybody.
Dream
Sleep
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.
Heartbreak
Betrayal
Fall
Our Psychological Reality, Which Lies Below The Surface, Frightens Us Because It Endlessly Surprises Us And Drives Us In A Direction Which Society's Rules And Organizations Define As Wrong Or Dangerous.
Lying
Reality
Organization
The Poet Is One Who Is Able To Keep The Fresh Vision Of The Child Alive.
Life
Children
Abuse
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
Lying
Men
Mind
The Obstacle Became His Alibi For Weakness.
Weakness
Obstacles
Not Afraid Of Poverty And Drabness And Who Is Untouched By It, Untouched By The Drunkenness Of Her Friends; (she) Who Judges, Selects, Discards People With Severity, Who Knows, When She Is Telling Her Endless Anecdotes, That They Are Ways Of Escape, Keeping Herself All The More Secret Behind That Profuse Talk.
Judging
People
Secret
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.
Women
Self
Historical
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.
Men
Faces
Fantasy
When One Is Pretending The Entire Body Revolts.
Being Yourself
Acceptance
Unique
We Speak Of The Masculine And The Feminine, But They Are The Wrong Labels. It Is Really More A Matter Of Poetry Versus Intellectualization.
Labels
Matter
Speak
You Cannot Save People. You Can Only Love Them.
Inspirational
Life
People
Poetry Is The Alchemy Which Teaches Us To Convert Ordinary Materials Into Gold.
Gold
Ordinary
Alchemy
I Must Know, He Thinks. It Must Be Clear To Me. There Is A World Which Is Closed To Him, A World Of Shadings, Gradations, Nuances, And Subtleties. He Is A Genius And Yet He Is Too Explicit. June Slips Between His Fingers. You Cannot Posses Without Loving.
Thinking
June
Genius
The Impetus To Grow And Live Intensely Is So Powerful In Me I Cannot Resist It. I Will Work, I Will Love My Husband, But I Will Fulfill Myself.
Powerful
Husband
Grows
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.
Dancer
Ballet
Vehemence
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.
Falling In Love
Hate
Sleep
I Needed To Live, But I Also Needed To Record What I Lived.
Writing
Records
Needed
... America Is The Greatest Humiliator In Existence. It Is Always Cultivating The Power You Get From Humiliating Others.
America
Existence
Humiliating
I Write Emotional Algebra.
Writing
Emotional
Algebra
Everything With Me Is Either Worship And Passion Or Pity And Understanding. I Hate Rarely, Though When I Hate. I Hate Murderously.
Hate
Passion
Understanding
One Always, Sooner Or Later, Comes Upon A City Which Is An Image Of One's Inner Cities. Fez Is An Image Of My Inner Self. ... The Layers Of The City Of Fez Are Like The Layers And Secrecies Of The Inner Life. One Needs A Guide. ... There Were In Fez, As In My Life, Streets Which Led Nowhere, Impasses Which Remained A Mystery.
Self
Cities
Needs
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