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Anaïs Nin Books

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Delta of Venus

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Henry and June

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Little Birds

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“Before, as soon as I came home from all sorts of places I would sit down and write in my journal. Now I want to write you, talk with you... I love when you say all that happens is good, it is good. I say all that happens is wonderful. For me it is all symphonic, and I am so aroused by living - god, Henry, in you alone I have found the same swelling of enthusiasm, the same quick rising of the blood, the fullness... Before, I almost used to think there was something wrong. Everybody else seemed to have the brakes on... I never feel the brakes. I overflow. And when I feel your excitement about life flaring, next to mine, then it makes me dizzy.”

LovePassion
Book:A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953
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“Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me--the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere where I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art. We also write to heighten our awareness of life. We write to lure, enchant, and to console others. We write to serenade. We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and once in retrospection. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak to others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled or restricted or lonely.”

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Author:Anaïs Nin
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“Dr Allendy said that it was necessary to become equal to life, that the romantic was defeated by life, really died of it, whether by tuberculosis in the old days, or by neurosis today. I had never thought before of the connection between neurosis and romanticism. Wanting the impossible? Dying when unable to reach it? Not wanting to compromise?”

RomanticRomanticismNeurosis
Book:The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
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“Over and over again I sail towards joy, which is never in the room with me, but always near me, across the way, like those rooms full of gayety one sees from the street, or the gayety in the street one sees from a window. Will I ever reach joy? It hides behind the turning merry-go-round of the traveling circus. As soon as I approach it, it is no longer joy. Joy is a foam, an illumination. I am poorer and hungrier for the want of it. When I am in the dance, joy is outside in the elusive garden. When I am in the garden, I hear it exploding from the house. When I am traveling, joy settles like an aurora borealis over the land I leave. When I stand on the shore I see it bloom on the flag of a departing ship. What joy? Have I not possessed it? I want the joy of simple colours, street organs, ribbons, flags, not a joy that takes my breath away and throws me into space alone where no one else can breathe with me, not the joy that comes from a lonely drunkenness. There are so many joys, but I have only known the ones that come like a miracle, touching everything with light.”

Joy
Book:Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin
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“The origin of illness may be in the past, but the virulent crisis must be dynamically tackled. I believe in attacking the core of the illness, through its present symptoms, quickly, directly. The past is a labyrinth. One does not have to step into it and move step by step through every turn and twist. The past reveals itself instantly, in today’s fever or abscess of the soul.”

MadnessIllnessNeurosisPast And Present
Book:The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
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“June, you have killed my sincerity too. I will never again know who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me. You carry away with you a part of me reflected in you. When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence. You are the woman I want to be. I see in you that part of me which is you. I feel compassion for your childish pride, for your trembling unsureness, your dramatization of events, your enhancing of the loves given to you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madness.”

LoveLoversMadnessSincerityLesbianLesbian Lgbt
Book:The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
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“She had the changing quality of dream. She obeyed her own oscillations. What came into being between them was not a marriage but an interplay where nothing was ever fixed. No planetary tensions, chartered and mapped and measured. Her movements were of absolute abandon, yieldingness and then at the smallest sign of lethargy or neglect, complete withdrawal and he had to begin his courtship anew. every day she could be won again lost again. and the reason for her flights and departures, her breaks from him, were obscure and mysterious to him.”

Relationship
Book:Ladders to Fire
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“Χθες τη νύχτα, έκλαψα. Έκλαψα γιατί ο δρόμος που ακολούθησα για να γίνω γυναίκα ήταν δύσκολος και οδυνηρός... Έκλαψα γιατί δεν μπορούσα να πιστέψω πια και μ' αρέσει να πιστεύω. Αλλά, τώρα, μπορώ ν' αγαπήσω με πάθος, χωρίς όμως πίστη, χωρίς να πιστεύω σε τίποτα. Κι αυτό σημαίνει ότι τώρα μπορώ ν' αγαπήσω ανθρώπινα. Έκλαψα γιατί από τώρα θ' αρχίσω να κλαίω λιγότερο. Έκλαψα, γιατί έχασα την οδύνη και δεν έχω ακόμα συνηθίσει να ζω χωρίς οδύνη.”

LovePain
Book:Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin
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“The magic beauty of simultaneity, to see the loved one rushing toward you at the same moment you are rushing toward him, the magic power of meeting, exactly at midnight to achieve union, the illusion of one common rhythm achieved by overcoming obstacles, deserting friends, breaking other bonds - all this was soon dissolved by his laziness, by his habit of missing every moment, of never keeping his word, of living perversely in a state of chaos, of swimming more naturally in a sea of failed intentions, broken promises, and aborted wishes”

BooksBook QuotesAnais Nin
Book:The Four-Chambered Heart: V3 in Nin's Continuous Novel
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