Anaïs Nin

“Then at certain moments I remember one of his words and I suddenly feel the sensual woman flaring up, as if violently caressed. I say the word to myself, with joy. It is at such a moment that my true body lives.”

“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.”

“I hate rarely, though when I hate, I hate murderously.”

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.”

“He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.”

“Over and over again I sail towards joy, which is never in the room with me, but always near me, across the way, like those rooms full of gayety one sees from the street, or the gayety in the street one sees from a window. Will I ever reach joy? It hides behind the turning merry-go-round of the traveling circus. As soon as I approach it, it is no longer joy. Joy is a foam, an illumination. I am poorer and hungrier for the want of it. When I am in the dance, joy is outside in the elusive garden. When I am in the garden, I hear it exploding from the house. When I am traveling, joy settles like an aurora borealis over the land I leave. When I stand on the shore I see it bloom on the flag of a departing ship. What joy? Have I not possessed it? I want the joy of simple colours, street organs, ribbons, flags, not a joy that takes my breath away and throws me into space alone where no one else can breathe with me, not the joy that comes from a lonely drunkenness. There are so many joys, but I have only known the ones that come like a miracle, touching everything with light.”

“Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate, I hate murderously. For example now, I hate the bank and everything connected with it. I also hate Dutch paintings, penis-sucking, parties, and cold rainy weather. But I am much more preoccupied with loving.”

“Paul, Paul, this is the claim you never made, the fervor you never showed. You were so cool and light, so elusive, and I never felt you encircling me and claiming possession. Rango is saying all the words I wanted to hear you say. You never came close to me, even while taking me. You took me as men take foreign women in distant countries whose language they cannot speak. You took me in silence and strangeness.”

“His entire body was pleading for reassurance, and if her whole love was not enough what else could she give him to cure his doubt?”

“We are going to the moon that is not very far. Man has so much farther to go within himself.”

“And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

“אנו כותבים כדי לטעום את החיים פעמיים: ברגע ההתרחשות ובמבט לאחור.”

“יש דרכים רבות להיות חופשי. אחת מהן היא לתת לדמיון לגבור על המציאות.”

“כל חבר מייצג משהו בעצמנו, שאולי נולד רק כשפגשנו בו.”

“אני אישה באופן כה מוחלט שאני מבינה את אבא שלי כבן אדם.”

“אנו נודדים, לעתים לתמיד, כדי למצוא מדינות אחרות, חיים אחרים, נפשות אחרות.”

“איננו רואים את הדברים כפי שהם, אנו רואים את פני הדברים כמו שאנחנו.”

“החיים מתכווצים או מתרחבים בהתאם לאומץ האדם.”

“אינך יכול להציל אנשים, אתה יכול רק לאהוב אותם.”

“חלומות הכרחיים לחיים.”