Anais Nin Quotes

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

I've come to the conclusion that beautiful women in the West aren't comfortable finding strength in their femininity. They want to do masculine-oriented things to establish their femininity. It's a contradiction.

You see what happens today. Women act like men and want to be treated like women.

Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there's a whole world of of girls and their doings that has been unknown to me, and that I can be part of without making any effort at all. I don't have to keep up with anyone, run as fast, aim as well, make loud explosive noises, decode messages, die on cue. I don't have to think about whether I do these things well, as well as a boy. All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans our of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly.

I absolutely do prefer a dominant guy. I play a very dominant role in my life, in every other aspect of it. And I like to feel like a lady still, at some point. I feel like that's the time when a guy really gets to be a man, and I get to be a woman. And if I'm being a man in the bedroom too, there's nothing really in it for me.

The impulse of the American woman to geld her husband and castrate her sons is very strong.

Being the only female in what was basically a boys’ club must have been difficult for her. Miraculously, she didn’t compensate by becoming hard or quarrelsome. She was still a girl, a slight lovely girl who lay in bed and ate chocolates, a girl whose hair smelled like hyacinth and whose scarves fluttered jauntily in the breeze. But strange and marvelous as she was, a wisp of silk in a forest of black wool, she was not the fragile creature one would have her seem.

Any woman who wishes to smash into the world of men isn't very feminine.

Often, women as little girls are sent off on a track for them to live a perfect life and be a perfect woman. Not for boys, who can be themselves with their mood and their temper.

Women rule our lives, don't they?

I thought it was very important that femininity wasn't lost.

A woman can never be too rich or too thin, but until very, very recently, she could be too powerful, for which - if she wasn't smart enough to camouflage herself - she generally paid the price.

Nature makes woman to be won and men to win.

I would argue that something dark is lurking between the sexes, and that it is seeping out into cinema.

To be feminist doesn't mean you can't be submissive.

Man is a question; woman is an answer. The mistake women make today is to offer themselves as answers before being questioned.

Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.

If there's a woman who is exhibiting her femininity or performing her femininity, it's always seen as meant to pull in the male gaze.

What should all men know about women? That we are always right and you should just agree.

Men always like to please women. Women like to please men, too - some women. Some are very good at it.

No one knows what women want!

The worst mistake a woman can make is to emulate a man.

I think a woman gets more if she acts feminine.

Women should not have to adopt masculine traits in order to succeed. You should be able to stay as a woman, and in tune with your femininity, and still be equal.

She represented the distilled essence of the battle between the sexes.