The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
Anais NinRead
What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I want to kneel as it falls over me like rain, gather it up with lace and silk, and press it over myself again.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote expresses a deep desire to cherish and preserve happiness in one's life.
Anais Nin's quote reflects an intense yearning to both embrace and safeguard happiness. The imagery of kneeling beneath falling happiness like rain suggests a profound appreciation for joyful moments, while the desire to gather and preserve it with lace and silk symbolizes the fragility of joy and the effort one takes to hold onto it amidst life's unpredictability.
Themes
HappinessCherishPreserveJoyEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about mental health, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of valuing and protecting happiness.
More from Anais Nin
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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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We have been poisoned by fairy tales.
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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.
Anais NinRead
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