Anaïs Nin was a French-born U.S. writer and essayist who found fame with her “naughty writing” after her death in 1977 at the age of 73.
She wrote journals, essays, short stories and erotica. Her first published book titled “D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study” back in 1932 in Paris.
Most of her work was published posthumously, that include “Delta of Venus” and “Little Birds“.
“Delta of Venus” is a collection of fifteen short stories were written in the 1940s for a private collector by the name of Roy M. Johnson of Healdton Oil, Oklahoma.
This book was made into a movie in 1994 and directed by Zalman King.
Anaïs Nin Nin wrote sixteen volumes of her journals which have been published. The last five of them are adult journals in expurgated form.
For those of you who are a fan of this passionate female writer, you might have read her controversial ‘Father Story’ about Nin and her father Joaquin Nin from one of her “A Journal of Love -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932-1934)”.
Below are a list of selected authentic Anaïs Nin quotes which might arouse your interests.
“The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 4 (1944-1947) By Anaïs Nin, 1972, July, 1945; p.71)
“Writers do not live one life, they live two. There is the living and then there is the writing. There is the second tasting, the delayed reaction.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1 (1931–1934) By Anaïs Nin, 1966; p.73)
“The white page for me is like a ski slope; I go absolutely mad! I go mad in stationery stores. Just to see beautiful paper gives me a desire to write.” – Anaïs Nin
“I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live.” – Anaïs Nin
[A lecture given at the Celebration of Women in the Arts, in San Francisco, April 1974]
(Ramparts Magazine, June 1974)
(Also quoted in: In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays By Anaïs Nin, 2012, The New Woman; p.12)
“Introspection does not need to be a still life. It can be an active alchemy.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1 (1931–1934) By Anaïs Nin, 1966; p.126)
“It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened to me.” – Anaïs Nin
(The journals of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1 By Anaïs Nin, Edited By Gunther Stuhlmann, 1970; p.185)
“There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don’t work.” – Anaïs Nin
(Henry and June: from the unexpurgated diary of Anaïs Nin By Anaïs Nin, 1986; p.8)
“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.” – Anaïs Nin
(In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays By Anaïs Nin, 2012, The New Woman; p.13)
“I put my faith in therapy as others do in religion, or philosophy.” – Anaïs Nin
“When you allow yourself to be negative, you add to the burdens of the world.” – Anaïs Nin
“Books are the greatest companions, confessors, confidantes, tutors, a source of pleasure, a cure for loneliness, and to find one, in the middle of an island in Tahiti, in the heart of the Moroccan desert, or at an airport where one is stranded for a night, is to find the friend who reminds us we are not alone.” – Anaïs Nin
“Ultimately I look upon writing as wings. We are pedestrians, we walk along the earth; we may love the earth, but the moment of absolute magic is when our imagination allows us to take flights into vaster, more entrancing worlds.” – Anaïs Nin
“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Four-Chambered Heart By Anaïs Nin,1979; p.18)
“When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 5 (1947-1955) By Anaïs Nin, 1975; p.149)
“We do not escape into philosophy, psychology, and art–we go there to restore our shattered selves into whole ones.” – Anaïs Nin
(In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays By Anaïs Nin, 2012, The New Woman; p.17)
“Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1 (1931–1934) By Anaïs Nin, 1966, Winter, 1931-1932; p.5)
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971, June, 1941; p.125)
“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.” – Anaïs Nin
(D. H. Lawrence : An Unprofessional Study By Anaïs Nin, 1964; p.20)
“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.” – Anaïs Nin
(Anaïs Nin reader By Anaïs Nin, 1973; p.302)
“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It creates the failures. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds onto you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 4 (1944-1947) By Anaïs Nin, 1972, February, 1947l; p.185)
“Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.” – Anaïs Nin
(Anaïs Nin reader By Anaïs Nin, 1973; p.79)
“The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. I (1931–1934) By Anaïs Nin, Gunter Stunhlmann , 1980; p.51)
“For you and for me the highest moment, the keenest joy, is not when our minds dominate but when we lose our minds.” – Anaïs Nin
“Passion gives me moments of wholeness.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. I (1931–1934) By Anaïs Nin Edited By Gunther Stuhlmann, 1966; p.48)
“We don’t have a language for the senses. Feelings are images, sensations are like musical sounds.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. I (1931–1934) By Anaïs Nin Edited By Gunther Stuhlmann, 1966; p.51)
“Man can never know the kind of loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in a woman’s womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. I (1931–1934) By Anaïs Nin Edited By Gunther Stuhlmann, 1966; p.106)
“It is in the moments of emotional crisis that human beings reveal themselves most accurately.” – Anaïs Nin
(On Writing By Anaïs Nin, William Burford, 1947; p.22)
“Dreams are necessary to life.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 2 (1934-1939) By Anaïs Nin, 1970, June, 1936, Letter to my mother; p.89)
“The earth is heavy and opaque without dreams.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol.3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, Edited By Gunther Stuhlmann, 1969; p.78)
“It was while writing a Diary that I discovered how to capture the living moments.” – Anaïs Nin
(On Writing By Anaïs Nin, William Burford, 1947; p.20)
“Anxiety is love’s greatest killer, because it is like the stranglehold of the drowning.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 5 (1947-1955) By Anaïs Nin, 1975, Summer, 1948; p.34)
“The basis of insincerity is the idealized image we hold of ourselves and wish to impose on others.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 1 (1931-1934) By Anaïs Nin, 1969, July, 1932; p.128)
“To lie, of course, is to engender insanity.” – Anaïs Nin
(Henry and June: from the unexpurgated diary of Anaïs Nin By Anaïs Nin, 1986; p.231)
“I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 1 (1931-1934) By Anaïs Nin, 1969; p.190)
“When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1 (1931-1934) By Anaïs Nin, Editor Gunther Stuhlmann, 1980; p.286)
“For me, the adventures of the mind, each inflection of thought, each movement, nuance, growth, discovery, is a source of exhilaration.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 1 (1931-1934) By Anaïs Nin, 1969; p.294)
“People living deeply have no fear of death.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 2 (1934-1939) By Anaïs Nin, 1970, August, 1935; p.60)
“You cannot save people, you can only love them.” – Anaïs Nin
(Anais, Vol. 13 Contributed By Anais Nin Foundation, 1995; p.113)
“No one but a woman in love ever sees the maximum of men’s greatness.” – Anaïs Nin
“Experience teaches acceptance of the imperfect as life.” – Anaïs Nin
(Anais Vol. 12 Contributor Anais Foundation, 1994; p.10)
“To withhold from living is to die and that the more you give of yourself to life the more life nourishes you.” – Anaïs Nin
(Anais Vol. 12 Contributor Anais Foundation, 1994; p.13)
“Ecstasy is a moment of exaltation, of wholeness.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 2 (1934-1939) By Anaïs Nin, 1970, August, 1936; p.109)
“The reading of books is in itself the most beautiful education of all. Because of reading I acquainted with the entire whole, physical, intellectual, historical, scientific. My life was expanded.” – Anaïs Nin
“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 4 (1944-1947) By Anaïs Nin, 1972, July, 1945; p.74)
“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol.3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971, April, 1940; p.78)
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anaïs Nin
(In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays By Anaïs Nin, 2012, The New Woman; p.13)
“I want to live only for ecstasy. Small doses, moderate loves, all half-shades, leave me cold. I like extravagance.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 1 (1931-1934) By Anaïs Nin, 1969, February, 1933; p.174)
“Every moment you can choose what you wish to see, observe or record. It is your choice. So you create the total aspect according to your vision.” – Anaïs Nin
“Poetry is the myth created out of human elements.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971, February, 1940; p.19)
“Any experience carried out deeply to its ultimate leads you beyond yourself into a larger relation to the experience of others.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971; p.299)
“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin: 1944-1947 By Anaïs Nin, 1971; p.65)
“You live out the confusions until they become clear.” – Anaïs Nin
(The journals of Anaïs Nin, Volume 3 By Anaïs Nin, Gunther Stuhlmann, 1966; p.160)
“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.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin: 1944-1947 By Anaïs Nin, 1971; p.65)
“Every individual is representative of the whole, a symptom, and should be intimately understood.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971 ; p.44)
“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.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anaïs Nin: 1944-1947 By Anaïs Nin, 1971; p. 65)
“It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 5 (1947-1955) By Anaïs Nin, 1975, Winter, 1949-1950; p.56 )
“As you swim, you are washed of all the excrescences of so-called civilization, which includes the incapacity to be happy under any circumstances.” – Anaïs Nin
“If one changes internally, one should not continue to live with the same objects.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 4 (1944-1947) By Anaïs Nin, 1972, September, 1944; p.26)
“We cannot always place responsibility outside of ourselves, on parents, nations, the world, society, race, religion.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 5 (1947-1955) By Anaïs Nin, 1975, Winter, 1948; p.40)
“There are so many joys, but I have only known the ones that come like a miracle, touching everything with light.” – Anaïs Nin
“We believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people… This is the illusion which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing next to us.” – Anaïs Nin
(Conversations with Anaïs Nin By Anaïs Nin, Wendy M. DuBow, Interview with Studs Terkel, 1972; p.152)
“Each triumph is a conquest by the body, fingers, muscles. You live with your hands, in acts of physical deftness.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971; p.186)
“You pit your faculties against concrete problems. The victories are concrete, definable, touchable.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971; p.186)
“Just bring your own contents, and you create a sparkle of the highest power.” – Anaïs Nin
“The ivory tower of the artist may be the only stronghold left for human values, cultural treasures, man’s cult of beauty.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971, September, 1940; p.49)
“Any experience carried out deeply to its ultimate leads you beyond yourself into a larger relation to the experience of others.” – Anaïs Nin
(The Diary of Anais Nin Vol. 3 (1939-1944) By Anaïs Nin, 1971; p.299)
Note:
All the above quotations by Anais Nin are 100% AUTHENTIC taken from her various books available online.
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