The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
Anais NinRead
Often, though, the passivity of the woman's role weighs on me, suffocates me. Rather than wait for his pleasure, I would like to take it, to run wild. Is it that which pushes me into lesbianism? It terrifies me. Do women act thus? Does June go to Henry when she wants him? Does she mount him? Does she wait for him? He guides my inexperienced hands. It is like a forest fire, to be with him. New places of my body are aroused and burnt. He is incendiary. I leave him in an unquenchable fever.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores a woman's struggle with passivity in relationships and her desire for agency.
In this quote, Anais Nin reflects on the limitations imposed on women within romantic relationships and acknowledges the suffocating nature of passivity. She expresses a desire for more active participation and control over her sexual identity and relationships, suggesting a complex interplay of desire, fear, and empowerment. The metaphor of fire illustrates the intensity of her feelings, depicting both the passion and the potential destruction that such emotions can bring.
Themes
PassivityDesireAgencyRelationshipsWomenExploration
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on women's empowerment, this quote can illustrate the importance of taking agency in oneβs life.
More from Anais Nin
All quotes βAnxiety 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
One of the things that the court held in Brown v. Board of Education is that government can't impose a badge of inferiority on some of its citizens. Yet that is exactly what Proposition 8 does with respect to gay and lesbian couples in California.
David BoiesRead
If most men and women were forced to rely upon physical charm to attract lovers, their sexual lives would be not only meager but in a youth-worshiping country like America painfully brief.
Gore VidalRead
My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable
Anne LamottRead
A feud should live a full and colorful life, and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.
Paul NewmanRead
Intimacy blossoms anytime you let down your socially acceptable mask.
Deepak ChopraRead
When you don't have much money, you worry that they'll just put you in the ground someplace and your loved ones won't know where you are.
B. B. KingRead