Quote collection
520 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all of the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine."
"I want to hear raucous music, to see faces, to brush against bodies, to drink fiery Benedictine. Beautiful women and handsome men arouse fierce desires in me. I want to dance. I want drugs. I want to know perverse people, to be intimate with them. I never look at naive faces. I want to bite into life, and to be torn by it."
"I looked upon a clock to find the truth. The hours were passing like ivory chess figures, striking piano notes, and the minutes raced on wires mounted like tin soldiers. Hours like tall ebony women with gongs between their legs, tolling continuously so that I could not count them. I heard the rolling of my heart-beats; I heard the footsteps of my dreams, and the beat of time was lost among them like the face of truth."
"He does not need opium. He has the gift of reverie."
"No one should be forced to carry the unfulfilled self of another."
"I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don’t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated"
"You fall in love with people's minds."
"The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements."
"Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem."
"At a lecture I am asked to pronounce my name three times. I try to be slow and emphatic, "Anaïs - Anaïs - Anaïs. You just say "Anna" and then add "ees," with the accent on the "ees.""
"Dreams are necessary to life."
"Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat."
"The fiery moments of passionate experience are the moments of wholeness and totality of the personality."
"The obstacle became his alibi for weakness."
"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."
"You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too."
"The child who is uprooted begins to recognize that what he builds within himself is what will endure, what will withstand shattering experiences."
"In chaos, there is fertility."
"Passion gives me moments of wholeness."
"I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me."