"Perhaps a child, like a cat, is so much inside of himself that he does not see himself in the mirror."
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Quote collection
Anais Nin quotes (page 13 of 26)
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"Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them."
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"I despise my own hypersensitiveness, which requires so much reassurance. It is certainly abnormal to crave so much to be loved and understood."
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"Tropical nights are hammocks for lovers."
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"We three belong to the Middle Ages. We have this need of heroism, and there is no place for such feelings in modern life. That is our tragedy. Once I wanted to be a saint. It seemed the only absolute act left to do, for what is most powerful in me is the craving for purity, greatness."
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"But I lie. I embellish. My words are not deep enough. They disguise, they conceal. I will not rest until I have told of my descent into a sensuality which was as dark, as magnificent, as wild, as my moments of mystic creation have been dazzling, ecstatic, exalted."
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"Innocence was gone from all our acts. Our habitual state of rebellion became a serious political crime."
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"I had been struck by the analogy between neurosis and romanticism. Romanticism was truly a parallel to neurosis. It demanded of reality an illusory world, love, an absolute which it could never obtain, and thus destroyed itself by the dream."
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"I write emotional algebra."
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"The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation."
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"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."
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"We do not see the world as it is. We see the word as we are."
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"I love your silences, they are like mine."
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"To change skins, evolve into new cycles, I feel one has to learn to discard. If one changes internally one should not continue to live with the same objects. They reflect one's mind and psyche of yesterday. I throw away what has no dynamic, living use."
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"Mature people relate to each other without the need to merge."
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"I don't hear your words: your voice reverberates against my body like another kind of caress, another kind of penetration. I have no power over your voice. It comes straight from you into me. I could stuff my ears and it would find its way into my blood and make it rise."
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"I have no brakes on...analysis is for those who are paralyzed by life."
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"myself ... is merely an instrument to connect life and a myth"
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"Life is so fluid that one can only hope to capture the living moment, to capture it alive and fresh ... without destroying that moment."
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"The richest source of creation is feeling, followed by a vision of its meaning."
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