Anais Nin Quotes

I was a very defensive kid 'cause I was really sensitive underneath and didn't want people to know. So I came off as very tough and very angry.

People choose to shut themselves off and build a load of defense mechanisms and not let anybody in because it's easier that way. You don't get hurt, and there's less risk involved if you build this hard shell.

Yet what happened in fact? In the middle of the night John woke up and saw me sleeping beside him with no doubt a look of peace on my face, even of bliss, bliss is not unattainable in this world. He saw me—saw me as I was at that moment—took fright, hurriedly strapped the armour back over his heart, this time with chains and a double padlock, and stole out into the darkness.

The primary nature of every human being is to be open to life and love. Being guarded, armoured, distrustful and enclosed is second nature in our culture. It is the means we adopt to protect ourselves against being hurt, but when such attitudes become characterological or structured in the personality, they constitute a more severe hurt and create a greater crippling than the one originally suffered.

I started to build barriers between myself and others to protect myself.

I don't have many walls that I put up.

I won't put myself in a position where I'm vulnerable.

When everyone thinks they know you, it's hard not to be guarded.

Sometimes I'm not as open to loving.

I would like to be soft and warm. I would be terrified to be that way. I could be hurt if I were soft and warm. I could be hurt by something other than myself. It is harder to be soft than it is to be hard. I could be hurt by something other than myself.

You aren't afraid of throwing yourself in the path of danger, but you're terrified of letting anyone in.

The truth is, I've always been afraid of letting anyone get too close. I built a wall around me, a barricade to hide behind those few times someone wanted entry to my heart.

I won't let you close enough to hurt me.

My heart was closed. Cold. I was self-conscious and cynical.

After the briskness of loving, loving stops. And you roll over with death stretched out alongside you like a feather boa, or a snake, light as air, and you... you don't even ask for anything or try to say something to him because it's obviously your own damn fault. You haven't been able to- to what? To open your heart. You open your legs but can't, or don't dare anymore, to open your heart.

If your guard is up, let it down. If you've constructed a defensive wall to protect yourself and keep all the bad guys out, don't forget who that wall also prevents from getting in - the good guys.

Those with the softest hearts build the hardest shells.

You can blame your ugliness for keeping people at bay, when in reality you're crippled by the thought of letting another person close enough to popentially scar you even more deeply. You can tell yourself that it's safer to love someone who will never really love you back, because you can't lose someone you never had.

That only shows you have no heart,’ she said. But her eyes said that she knew he had a heart, and that was why she was afraid of him

Your only real choices are to open fully and receive their gifts or crucify them and be relieved of their force...But you must be willing to feel your heart's terrors and wounds or else you will close and protect yourself, striking back at the source of openness you most yearn to become.

The enemy is more easily overcome if he be not suffered to enter the door of our hearts, but be resisted without the gate at his first knock.

They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love.

Now let us play hide and seek. Should you hide in my heart it would not be difficult to find you. But should you hide behind your own shell, then it would be useless for anyone to seek you.

Our barriers to love are rarely consciously chosen. They are our efforts to protect the places where the heart is bruised.

The best way to not get your heart broken, is pretending you don't have one.