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Anais Nin

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“There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.”

WorldTwoSelfFeltInterestEmotionStageSceneDespairWeaknessCuriosityEnthusiasmDesperateLeapDrowningHelplessnessOne WomanEagernessBewilderedTrue Emotions
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“From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.”

PeopleInspirationalGivingImportantLawFocusEventsAngerWorkersNegativityIn-lawsDestroyersTake ControlMeddlingCo WorkerSister In LawBackstabbing
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“In the world of the dreamer there was solitude: all the exaltations and joys came in the moment of preparation for living. They took place in solitude. But with action came anxiety, and the sense of insuperable effort made to match the dream, and with it came weariness, discouragement, and the flight into solitude again. And then in solitude, in the opium den of remembrance, the possibility of pleasure again.”

WorldMadeMomentsDreamActionJoyPleasureEffortPossibilitySolitudeAnxietyFlightPreparationDreamerRemembranceDiscouragementWearinessOpiumExaltationDens
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“The same chemicals were used in the cooking as were used on the composition of her own being: only those which caused the most violent reaction, contradiction, and teasing, the refusal to answer questions but the love of putting them, and all the strong spices of human relationship which bore a relation to black pepper, paprika, soybean sauce, ketchup and red peppers.”

HumansUsedStrongBlackAnswersRedRelationCookingViolentReactionsContradictionChemicalsBoresCompositionRefusalSpicesSauceTeaseHuman RelationshipsPeppersKetchupSoybeansBlack Pepper
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“Jeanne, I fell asleep among the paintings, where I could sit for many days worshipping your portrait. I fell in love with your portrait, Jeanne, because it will never change. I have such a fear of seeing you grow old, Jeanne, I fell in love with an unchanging you that will never be taken away from me. I was wishing you would die, so that no one could take you away from me, and I would love the painting of you as you would look eternally.”

LooksDiesWishGrowsTakenSeeingPaintingPortraitsNever ChangeUnchanging
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“What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.”

IfsNeedsMeanDoeCharacterFeelingsActionPastRaceAttitudeDestinyElementsResponsibleBackgroundsChemistryBondageInheritanceOur DestinyOur ActionsDiscouragingAltered
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“Often, though, the passivity of the woman's role weighs on me, suffocates me. Rather than wait for his pleasure, I would like to take it, to run wild. Is it that which pushes me into lesbianism? It terrifies me. Do women act thus? Does June go to Henry when she wants him? Does she mount him? Does she wait for him? He guides my inexperienced hands. It is like a forest fire, to be with him. New places of my body are aroused and burnt. He is incendiary. I leave him in an unquenchable fever.”

WantDoeBodyHandsRunningWaitingPleasureRolesFireGuidesForestsJuneFeverWant HimPassivityNew PlacesLesbianismForest FiresWait For HimWomen's Roles
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“Again I take a taxi to Clichy address, but feel that I do not want to go on loving Henry more actively than he loves me (having realized that nobody will ever love me in that overabundant, overexpressive, overthoughtful, overhuman way I love people), and so I will wait for him. So I ask taxi driver to drop me at the Galeries Lafayette, where I begin to look for a new hat and to shop for Christmas. Pride? I don't know. A kind of wise retreat. I need people too much. So I bury my gigantic defect, my overflow of love, under trivialities, like a child. I amuse myself with a new hat.”

PeopleKnowsWayWantNeedsFeelsLooksKindChildrenAsksWaitingToo MuchWisePrideGoes OnShopsHatsAddressesDriversRetreatDefectsTaxiOverflowTrivialityWait For HimLafayette
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“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made of layers, cells, constellations.”

LoveLifeHeartMadeSometimesPastGrowsGrowthAwarenessHumilityDiversityCellsMaturityRealmsDimensionsMatureRelativeLayersConstellationsPast PresentPast Present And FutureMaturedMingling
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“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. 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.”

WayLoveLifeBelievePersonsArtI CanReasonFeelingsRealityCreativityWallLetting GoOrdinaryStrongerOne WayEcstasyImpressMarvelousCan NotThirstyOrdinary LifeIntoxicationShacklesMarvelous Things
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“Many couples, many people, are not living with real human beings, but with their ghosts. Who has not followed for years the spell of a particular tone of voice, from voice to voice, as the fetishist follows a beautiful foot, scarcely seeing the woman herself? A voice, a mouth, an eye, all stemming from the original fountain of our first desire, directing it, enslaving us, until we choose to unravel the fatal web and free ourselves.”

PeopleYearsFirstsHumansRealEyeBeautifulDesireVoiceHuman BeingsSeeingFeetParticularCoupleMouthsOriginalsGhostToneSpellsFountainReal Human
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“Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous. 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. But I am not always in what I call a state of grace. I have days of illuminations and fevers. I have days when the music in my head stops. Then I mend socks, prune trees, can fruits, polish furniture. But while I am doing this I feel I am not living.”

WantFeelsDoeStatesMomentsInterestSpaceGraceTreeProveOrdinaryInfiniteFruitDimensionsMarvelousFurniturePolishAccordFeverIlluminationSockOrdinary LifeSurrealistPrunesInfinite Space
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