Anais Nin

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

Anais Nin

Love men and women not for their strength but their softness, not for their fullness but their hunger, not for their plenty but their need.

Anais Nin

Mature people relate to each other without the need to merge.

Anais Nin

Motherhood is a vocation like any other. It should be freely chosen, not imposed upon woman.

Anais Nin

My diary seems to keep me whole.

Anais Nin

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

Anais Nin

One does not learn to suffer less but to dodge pain.

Anais Nin

One may gain one truth at the expense of another.

Anais Nin

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

Anais Nin

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