Anaïs Nin
A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an Anaïs Nin quote that I'd forgotten about.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
It captured something that I needed to be reminded of in that moment. Remembering this, I did a Google search for Anaïs Nin quotes and found quite the treasure chest. I thought I'd share some of what I found here.
Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.
Do not seek the because – in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.
Dreams are necessary to life.
Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.
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.
It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.
People living deeply have no fear of death.
The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
19. October 2008 at 10:47 pm :
My favourite Anais Nin quote is probably apocryphal, from the movie Henry and June. Anais and Henry are lounging in bed after steamy congress, and she sighs, "ah, henry, we fit so well." He beams at her, chuffed at his prowess. "Not like with Hugo," she continues. He preens. "He is so BIG… we have to use vaseline."Not to cheapen her fine words above :-).
20. October 2008 at 11:39 am :
Beautiful. I love this: "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of
states we have to go through."
10. February 2009 at 10:45 am :
8. April 2009 at 8:57 am :