Quotes from Anais Nin

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

The personal, if it is deep enough, becomes universal, mythical, symbolic.

I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don't know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. In reality those who satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my ''idea of them.

Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me. I escape, one way or another. No more walls.

although I love a rich life, I hate an overcrowded life. I believe in rumination and lose half the beauty of all things when I am deprived of the time to ruminate.

Life is a full circle, widening until it joins the circle motions of the infinite.

Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.

You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too.

Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.

The risk it takes to remain tight inside the bud is more painful than the risk it takes to blossom. We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Dreams are essential to life.

Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key!