Anais Nin Quotes

A collection of quotes by Anais Nin.

AnaÃ¯s Nin (1903-1977) was a French-born American author and diarist. Born in Neuilly, France, she moved to the United States with her family at a young age. Nin began her writing career in the 1930s and became renowned for her experimental and provocative works, often exploring themes of love, desire, and female sexuality.

While her first published work was fiction, including novels and short stories, Nin is most famous for her diaries, which she meticulously kept for over four decades. Her diaries are considered a literary masterpiece, offering deep insights into her personal life, relationships, and creative process. The diaries also shed light on her complex relationships with notable figures of her time, including Henry Miller and his wife June, as well as with psychoanalyst Otto Rank.

Anais Nin's writing often challenged societal conventions, paving the way for a more open and liberated approach to female sexuality in literature. Her bold exploration of eroticism and her honest depiction of her own experiences made her both celebrated and controversial during her lifetime.

Nin's works have influenced generations of writers, especially in the feminist movement. Today, her diaries and novels continue to be celebrated for their artistic merit and her contributions to modern literature.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if s

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

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not b

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.

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight insid

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't kn

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.

I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being p

I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again

My life is slowed up by thought and the need to understand w

My life is slowed up by thought and the need to understand what I am living.

If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence o

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.

Experience Truth Happiness Knowledge

The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a

The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest.

Too late for changes, too late perhaps for explanations and

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 can't resist it, my whole being melts in one kiss, my knowledge melts, my fears melt, my blood dances, my legs open.

When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was no

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.

Only in the fever of creation could she recreate her own los

Only in the fever of creation could she recreate her own lost life.

Most fiction writers uses dreams decoratively without relati

Most fiction writers uses dreams decoratively without relating them to daily life, but the contemporary writer is becoming more expert at detecting the influence of one upon the other.

This abdiction of life demanded of the artist is to be achie

This abdiction of life demanded of the artist is to be achieved only relatively. Most artists have retired too absolutely; they grow rusty, inflexible to the flow of currents.

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my stren

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.

Experience teaches acceptance of the imperfect as life.

Experience teaches acceptance of the imperfect as life.

Experience Life

Passivity, like the passivity of India induced by religion,

Passivity, like the passivity of India induced by religion, is destructive both to human life and to art.

Life Art Religion

The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths be

The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other l

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.

The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manife

The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation.

What I cannot love, I overlook. Is that real friendship?

What I cannot love, I overlook. Is that real friendship?