Quotes by Anais Nin

“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 h...”

“We ought to be much more fearful of what we don’t know. We should really be fearful of an unconscious that inhabits us, that guides us, that influences our life and of which we don’t know the face ...”

“In our twenties we have conflicts. We think everything is either-or, black or white: we are caught between them and we lose all our energy in the conflicts. My answer, later on in maturity, was to ...”

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.”

“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.”

“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 naïve or innocent, who has ...”

“How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?”

“She lacks the core of sureness, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on reflections of herself in others' eyes. She does not dare to be herself.”

“Women always think that when they have my shoes, my dress , my hairdresser, my make-up, it will all work the same way. They do not conceive of the witchcraft that is needed. They do not know that I...”

“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.”

“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. A...”

“Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it.”

“I see enormous loves growing immense and finally crushing me.”

“I wept because from now on I will weep less. I wept because I have lost my pain and I am not yet accustomed to its absence.”

“One does not learn to suffer less but to dodge pain.”

“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 aw...”

“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 a...”

“Before, as soon as I came home from all sorts of places I would sit down and write in my journal. Now I want to write you, talk with you... I love when you say all that happens is good, it is good....”

“He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.”