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If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.
Anais Nin
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Writing should be passionate and expressive; otherwise, it lacks value.

In this quote, Anais Nin emphasizes the importance of emotional investment in writing. She argues that true writing must resonate deeply with the writer's feelings and experiences, as it is this authenticity that gives writing its significance and impact in culture.

Themes

WritingPassionEmotionCreativityExpression

In practice

Example use cases

In a writing workshop, to encourage students to be more expressive, a teacher could say, 'Remember what Anais Nin said: if you do not breathe through writing, your words will lack the fire they need.'

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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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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