Anais Nin

There is a fissure in my vision and madness will always rush through.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The two men who have done the greatest harm to the world are Christ and Columbus. Christ taught us guilt and sacrifice, to live only in the other world, and Columbus discovered America and materialism.

The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation.

I see enormous loves growing immense and finally crushing me.

Life is a full circle, widening until it joins the circle motions of the infinite.

One discovers that destiny can be diverted, that one does not have to remain in bondage to the first wax imprint made on childhood sensibilities. Once the deforming mirror has been smashed, there is a possibility of wholeness. There is a possibility of joy.

Introspection is a devouring monster. You have to feed it with much material, much experience, many people, many places, many loves, many creations, and then it ceases feeding on you.

He was now in that state of fire that she loved. She wanted to be burnt.

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.

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.

Idealism is the death of the body and the imagination. All but freedom, utter freedom, is death

Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.

The enemy of a love is never outside, it's not a man or woman, it's what we lack in ourselves.

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.

A man fell in love with Jeanne, and she tried to love him. But she complained that he uttered such ordinary words, that he could never say the magic phrase which would open her being.

I'm sick of my own romanticism!