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We have been poisoned by fairy tales.
Anais Nin
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote suggests that unrealistic narratives can distort our perception of reality.

Anais Nin's quote highlights the idea that fairy tales, often filled with idealized characters and situations, can lead to disillusionment and a skewed understanding of life. By being 'poisoned' by these tales, people may develop unrealistic expectations and romanticize experiences that are fundamentally more complicated and imperfect in reality.

Themes

Fairy TalesRealityExpectationsDisillusionmentNarratives

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the effects of media on young adults, one might say, 'As Anais Nin pointed out, we have been poisoned by fairy tales.'

More from Anais Nin

The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
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Anxiety is love's greatest killer, because it is like the stranglehold of the drowning.
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We celebrate peace. Yet we pay no attention to the ways of curing aggression in human beings. And when one sees in psychoanalysis hostility disappearing as people conquer their fears, one wonders if the cure is not there.
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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.
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But I lie. I embellish. My words are not deep enough. They disguise, they conceal. I will not rest until I have told of my descent into a sensuality which was as dark, as magnificent, as wild, as my moments of mystic creation have been dazzling, ecstatic, exalted.
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I gathered poets around me and we all wrote beautiful erotica. As we were condemned to focus only on sensuality, we had violent explosions of poetry. Writing erotica became a road to sainthood rather than to debauchery.
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