Anais Nin

Anas Nin (February 21, 1903 - January 14, 1977) was a French-born American author of Catalan and Danish descent who became famous for her published diaries, which span more than sixty years, beginning when she was eleven years old and ending shortly before her death. After the deaths of Anas Nin and her first husband, Hugh Guiler, the unexpurgated, or uncensored, versions of her diaries were commissioned by her second husband, Rupert Pole, and published to great interest and acclaim.

21 Quotes

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
— Anais Nin

Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.
— Anais Nin

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.
— Anais Nin

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
— Anais Nin

It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before... to test your limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
— Anais Nin

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
— Anais Nin

Dreams are necessary to life.
— Anais Nin

I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was the slavery to a pattern.
— Anais Nin

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
— Anais Nin

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked
— Anais Nin

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
— Anais Nin

Electric flesh-arrows... traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm.
— Anais Nin

The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation.
— Anais Nin

Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.
— Anais Nin

Woman does not forget she needs the fecundator, she does not forget that everything that is born of her is planted in her.
— Anais Nin

Als je niet ademt doorheen het schrijven, je niet uitschreeuwt in je schrijven of zingt in je schrijven; schrijf dan niet want daar heeft onze cultuur niets aan.
— Anais Nin

Het is de functie van kunst om onze perceptie te veranderen. De dingen waarmee we vertrouwd zijn stoppen we met zien. De schrijver haalt de vertrouwde scene overhoop en als bij magie zien we er een nieuwe betekenis in.
— Anais Nin

Ik krijg mijn ideeÃ«n niet aan mijn bureau terwijl ik aan het schrijven ben, die krijg ik terwijl ik aan het leven ben.
— Anais Nin

Wanneer we blindelings een religie, een politiek systeem of een literair dogma aanvaarden, worden we automaten. Dan stoppen we met groeien.
— Anais Nin

Love never dies a natural death. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. Lost a day and a half.
— Anais Nin

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat
— Anais Nin