Nin Quotes

There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.

The love of only one man or one woman is an enclosure.

The richest source of creation is feeling, followed by a vision of its meaning.

I have so strong a sense of creation, of tomorrow, that I cannot get drunk, knowing I will be less alive, less well, less creative the next day.

Life is so fluid that one can only hope to capture the living moment, to capture it alive and fresh ... without destroying that moment.

Nothing too long imagined can be perfect in a wordly way.

Where the myth fails, human love begins. Then we love a human being, not our dream, but a human being with flaws.

Sometimes I think of Paris not as a city but as a home.

In my childhood diary I wrote: “I have decided that it is better not to love anyone, because when you love people, then you have to be separated from them, and that hurts too much.

The inner chambers of the soul are like the photographer's darkroom. Like a laboratory. One cannot stay there all the time or it becomes the solitary cell of the neurotic.

I have this weird obsession about buying books and looking at them with a smile, even if I won't read them soon. At least they are mine now.

Also, I do not like the companionship of women. They are petty and personal. They hang on to their mysteries and secrets, they act and pretend. I like the character of men better.

perhaps the only magician we have is the artist.

What a mystery this is, desire. The love sickness, the sensitivity, the obsession, the flutter of the heart, the ebb and flow of the blood. There is no drug and no alcohol to equal it.

I see myself wrapped in lies, which do not seem to penetrate my soul, as if they are not really a part of me. They are like costumes.

I cheat him, I deceive him, yet the world does not sink in sulphur-colored mists. Madness conquers. I can no longer put my mosaics together. I just cry and laugh.

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.

I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you do stop, and then a moment later you are at it again with a knife, like a surgeon.

The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer.

The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.

One handles truths like dynamite. Literature is one vast hypocrisy, a giant deception, treachery. All writers have concealed more than they revealed.

In New York the acoustics are good for laughter, for life is all external, all action, no thought, no meditation, no dreaming, no reflection, only the exuberance of action.

atrophy of feeling creates criminals.

Guilt is the one burden human beings can't bear alone.

What you burnt, broke, and tore is still in my hands. I am the keeper of fragile things and I have kept of you what is indissoluble.

The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will love my husband, but I will fulfill myself.

Societies in decline have no use for visionaries.

You are the only woman who ever answered the demands of my imagination.

Woman does not forget she needs the fecundator, she does not forget that everything that is born of her is planted in her.

If a person continues to see giants, it means he is still looking at the world through the eyes of a child.

Dreams are essential to life.

Self-destructive patterns cause as much suffering as outer catastrophes.

I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have shared my kingdom with you.

I believe that in judging our actions we are more severe than professional judges. We judge not only our actions, but our thoughts, our intentions, our secret curses, our hidden hate.

Big Business and Politics are twins, they are the monsters who kill everything, corrupt everything.

All that is sacred and taboo in the world are meaningless.

The basis of insincerity is the idealized image we hold of ourselves and wish to impose on others.

A trite word is an overused word which has lost its identity like an old coat in a second-hand shop. The familiar grows dull and we no longer see, hear, or taste it.

To think of him in the middle of the day lifts me out of ordinary living.

The shell is America's most active contribution to the formation of character. A tough hide. Grow it early.

Either one fails in one's art or in one's life.

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage "People living deeply have no fear of death.

The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body.

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

Paris-New York, the two high tension magnetic poles between life, life of the senses, of the spirit in Paris, and life in action in New York.

Warmth, perfume, rugs, soft lights, books. They do not appease me. I am aware of time passing, of all the world contains that I have not seen, of all the interesting people I have not met.

There is a fissure in my vision and madness will always rush through.

I cannot concentrate all my friendship on any single one of my friends because no one is complete enough in himself.

Poetry is the alchemy which teaches us to convert ordinary materials into gold.

Nowhere is inhumanity more revealed than in hospitals.