The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
Anais NinRead
Instead of answering her as soon as he saw her hair grow electric, her face more vivid, her eyes like lightning, her body restless and jerky like a racehorse’s, he retired behind this wall of objective understanding, this gentle testing and acceptance of her, just as one watches an animal in the zoo and smiles at his antics, but is not drawn into this mood. It was this which left Lilith in a state of isolation - indeed, like a wild animal in an absolute desert.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the disconnect between emotional experience and intellectual observation in relationships.
In this quote, Anais Nin reflects on the complexity of human emotions and isolation that can arise when one partner is emotionally distant while observing the other. The comparison to watching a wild animal illustrates how one can appreciate another's vivacity from a distance yet fail to connect deeply, leaving one feeling isolated and alone despite the vibrancy of their partner's emotions. This creates an emotional barrier that can prevent intimacy and understanding.
Themes
RelationshipsIsolationEmotionIntimacyConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about emotional detachment in relationships, this quote could illustrate the need for deeper connection.
More from Anais Nin
All quotes →Anxiety is love's greatest killer, because it is like the stranglehold of the drowning.
Anais NinRead
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.
Anais NinRead
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.
Anais NinRead
We have been poisoned by fairy tales.
Anais NinRead
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
Similar quotes
I've always had this feeling wherever I go. Of not feeling fully part of things, not fully accepted, not fully inside of something.
Jhumpa LahiriRead
I’ve always wanted to be liked. It grieved me that I was treated with indifference. Left an orphan by Fortune, I wanted—like all orphans—to be the object of someone’s affection. This need has always been a hunger that went unsatisfied, and so thoroughly have I adapted to this inevitable hunger that I sometimes wonder if I really feel the need to eat. Whatever be the case, life pains me.
Fernando PessoaRead
Growing up, I didn't feel cool; I didn't fit into any crowd.
Madonna CicconeRead
Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions - for and to - express it all.
Danny MeyerRead
When a man says to me, 'Let us work together in the great cause you have undertaken, and let me be your companion and aid, for I admire you more than I have ever admired any other woman,' then I shall say, 'I am yours truly'; but he must ask me to be his equal, not his slave.
Susan B. AnthonyRead
The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.
Carlos Ruiz ZafonRead