101 Best Anais Nin Quotes About Love And Life

Anais Nin was a diarist and author of international repute who was a French-Cuban American.

Her mixed descent is the cause behind her rare name, which is pronounced as 'Anayees Nin'. Her name was apt for her because it meant 'grace' in Hebrew.

Rare name or not, her pioneering works made her among the leading diarists and writers of the 20th Century! An early proponent of feminist literature, Anais Nin was married twice, once to Ian Hugo and once to Rupert Pole.

But now, let us delve further into the works of this remarkable woman! Here is a curated list of Anais Nin quotes.

For more quotes, check out Simone de Beauvoir quotes and Sylvia Plath quotes.

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Anais Nin Quotes About Life

Here are some Anais Nin quotes to help you anywhere in the world. You will also find some Anais Nin poems quotes here!

1. "I watched life and wanted to be a part of it but found it painfully difficult."

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

2. "And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

- from the Anais Nin poem,  'Risk'.

3. "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

- 'Seduction Of Minotaur', 1961.

4. "I do not confess any more, I have no remorse, yet am I doing penance for my enjoyments?"

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

5. "With a great clap of thunder, and like bitter tears

The drops of rain become noisily mixed with those already fallen."

- Anais Nin.

6. "I could be healed by the sheer courage of continuing to live. I could heal myself."

- from 'A Journal of Love'

-The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1931-1932.

7. "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."

- Anais Nin.

8.  "I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason."

- Anais Nin.

9. "You write while you are alive. You do not preserve them in alcohol until the moment you are ready to write about them."

- Anais Nin.

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

- Anais Nin.

11. "Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn 't impress me."

- Anais Nin.

12. "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through."

- from 'D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study', 1932.

13. "I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."

- 'The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two, 1934-1939'.

14. "The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present."

- The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol. 4, 1971.

15. "How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?"

- Anais Nin.

16. "Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."

- from 'D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study', 1932.

17. "Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage."

- Anais Nin.

18. "I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me."

- Anais Nin.

19. "We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another."

- 'The Diary Of Anais Nin', 1944–1947.

20. "Worlds self-made are so full of monsters and demons."

- Anais Nin.

21. "There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person."

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

22. "In reality, those who satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my 'idea of them.'"

- Anais Nin.

23. "I hate men who are afraid of women's strength."

- from 'A Journal of Love' -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1931-1932.

24. "I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living."

- 'The Four-Chambered Heart', 1950.

25. "We are made up of layers, cells, constellations."

- 'The Diary Of Anais Nin', 1944–1947.

26. "Only in the fever of creation could she recreate her own lost life."

- Anais Nin.

27. "We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially."

- 'The Diary Of Anais Nin', 1944–1947.

28. "Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are."

- Anais Nin.

29. "I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make."

- Anais Nin.

30. "Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country."

- 'The Diary Of Anais Nin', 1944–1947.

31. "The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery."

- Anais Nin.

32. "The cult of the unconscious as proclaimed by Rimbaud. It is not madness. It is an effort to transcend the rigidities and the patterns made by the rational mind."

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

33. "My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can’t be loved as I am."

- Anais Nin.

34. "Don't let one cloud obliterate the whole sky."

- Anais Nin.

35. "There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing-up of our life and put attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous.”

- In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays, 1966.

36. "You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating."

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

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

- Anais Nin.

38. "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.

39. "But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now."

- Anais Nin.

40. "I had always believed in Andre Breton's freedom, to write as one thinks, in the order and disorder in which one feels in thinks, to follow sensations and absurd correlations of events and images, to trust to the new realms they lead one into."

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

41. "What unites us universally is our emotions, our feelings in the face of experience, and not necessarily the actual experiences themselves."

- In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays, 1966.

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

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

43. "I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again."

- from 'A Journal of Love' -The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1931-1932.

44. "My life is not possible to tell. I change every day, change my patterns, my concepts, my interpretations. I am a series of moods and sensations. I play a thousand roles. I weep when I find others play them for me. My real self is unknown. My work is merely an essence of this vast and deep adventure."

- Anais Nin.

45. "I am a neurotic - in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself."

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

'Delta Of Venus' Quotes By Anais Nin

Take a look at some quotes by Anais Nin from her celebrated piece of fiction that took the entire world by storm.

46. "And in his eyes he had the look of the cat who inspires a desire to caress but loves no one, who never feels he must respond to the impulses he arouses."

- 'Delta of Venus', Anais Nin.

47. "Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang on to their mysteries and secrets, they act and pretend. I like the character of men better."

- 'Delta of Venus', Anais Nin.

48. "So was Venus born of the sea with this little kernel of salty honey in her, which only caresses could bring out of the hidden recesses of her body."

- 'Delta of Venus', Anais Nin.

49. "Like the Baron, Mathilde developed a formula for acting out life as a series of roles—that is, by saying to herself in the morning while brushing her blond hair, 'Today I want to become this or that person', and then proceeding to be that person."

- 'Delta of Venus', Anais Nin.

50. "No two hairs alike, but you will not let us waste words on a description of hair; no two odors, but if we expand on this you cry, 'Cut the poetry.' "

- 'Delta of Venus', Anais Nin.

Anaïs Nin Quotes From 'Nearer The Moon'

Here are some Anaïs Nin quotes from 'Nearer the Moon: From A Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1937-1939' published in 1996.

51. "I don’t understand. I have so much courage, fire, energy, for so many things, yet I get so hurt, so wounded by small things."

- 'Nearer the Moon', Anais Nin.

52. "People feel that in her, the nonhuman. People are afraid of her. Something in her inspires a nonhuman attachment."

- 'Nearer the Moon', Anais Nin.

53. "When I am happy it is so rare. I need to dwell on it, to contemplate it. What a hunger, a craving for beautiful things."

- 'Nearer the Moon', Anais Nin.

Anaïs Nin Quotes From 'Henry And June'

Here are a few quotes from a part of Anais Nin's diary known as 'Henry and June'.

54. "I wept because my eyes were opened to reality... I wept because I could not believe anymore and I love to believe."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

55. "I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness, her demoniac destructiveness."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

56. "What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it?"

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

57. "I told her, 'We have both lost ourselves, but sometimes we reveal the most when we are least like ourselves.'"

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

58. "It is easy to love and there are so many ways to do it."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

58. "Last night I wept. I wept because the process by which I have become a woman was painful. I wept because I was no longer a child with a child's blind faith."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

59. "But what a superb game the three of us are playing. Who is the demon? Who is the liar? Who the human being? Who the cleverest? Who the strongest? Who loves the most? Are we three immense egos fighting for domination or for love, or are these things mixed?"

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

60.  "I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madnesses..."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

61. "June, you have killed my sincerity too. I will never know again who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

62. "A startling white face, burning dark eyes, a face so alive I felt it would consume itself before my eyes. Years ago I tried to imagine true beauty; I created in my mind an image of just such a woman."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

63. "I can still love passionately without believing. That means I love humanly."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

64. "I really believe that if I were not a writer, not a creator, not an experimenter, I might have been a very faithful wife."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

65. "Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate, I hate murderously."

- 'Henry and June', Anais Nin.

Anais Nin Quotes On Love

Anais Nin quotes on love are famous all over the world. Take a look at these selected Anais Nin love quotes.

66. "There is a resemblance between men and women, not a contrast. When a man begins to recognize his feeling, the two unite. When men accept the sensitive side of themselves, they come alive."

- 'In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays', 1966.

67. "I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don't know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness."

- Anais Nin.

68. "The love of only one man or one woman is an enclosure."

-  'Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932'.

69. "He was now in that state of fire that she loved. She wanted to be burnt."

- 'Delta Of Venus', 1977.

70. "Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions."

-  'Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932'.

71. "The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest."

- Anais Nin.

72. "I want to love you wildly. I don't want words, but inarticulate cries, meaningless, from the bottom of my most primitive being, that flow from my belly like honey."

- Anais Nin.

73. Someday I'll be locked up for love insanity. 'She loved too much!'"

- 'The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two: 1934-1939'.

74. "You should not love me. One ought not to love the moon. If you come too near me, I will hurt you."

- 'Delta Of Venus', 1977.

75. "We speak of the masculine and the feminine, but they are the wrong labels. It is really more a matter of poetry versus intellectualization."

- 'In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays', 1966.

76. "Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source."

- Anais Nin.

77. "Love is the axis and breath of my life. The art I produce is a byproduct, an excrescence of love, the song I sing, the joy which must explode, the overabundance — that is all!"

- Anais Nin.

78. "Oh, God, I know no joy as great as a moment of rushing into a new love, no ecstasy like that of a new love."

- Anais Nin.

79. "Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic."

- Anais Nin.

80. "Our love of each other was like two long shadows kissing without hope of reality."

- Anais Nin.

81. "You don't find love, it finds you."

- Anais Nin.

Anais Nin Quotes About Friendship

Take a look at these two Anais Nin friendship quotes. One of these might be the Anais Nin friendship quote that you are looking for.

82. "I only regret that everybody wants to deprive me of the journal, which is the only steadfast friend I have, the only one which makes my life bearable..."

- Anais Nin.

83. "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."

- 'The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934'.

Anaïs Nin Quotes On Writing

Here is a small list of quotes from writer Anais Nin on writing in the ordinary life.

84. "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.

85. "I write emotional algebra."

- Anais Nin.

86. "I am aware of being in a beautiful prison, from which I can only escape by writing."

- Anais Nin.

87. "My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living."

- Anais Nin.

88. "It is also true that creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself, and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing."

- Anais Nin.

89. "I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension."

- Anais Nin.

90. "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.

91. "I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live."

- Anais Nin.

92. "Writers do not live one life, they live two. There is the living and then there is the writing. There is the second tasting, the delayed reaction."

- Anais Nin.

More Anaïs Nin Quotes

Check out this list of some more Anaïs Nin quotes.

93. "I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard."

- Anais Nin.

94. "She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself."

- Anais Nin.

95. "I am a winged creature who is too rarely allowed to use its wings"

- Anais Nin.

96. "One word I would banish from the dictionary is ‘escape.’ Just banish that and you’ll be fine."

- Anais Nin.

97. "Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s!"

- Anais Nin.

98. "You cannot save people; you can only love them."

- Anais Nin.

99. "Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again."

- Anais Nin.

100. "I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing."

- Anais Nin.

101. "There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination."

- Anais Nin.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Anais Nin Quotes On Love & Life then why not take a look at D.H. Lawrence Quotes, or Sandra Cisneros Quotes.

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