Anais Nin Quotes

In the quiet moments of your day, what do you think and do? When you are with your Self and no one else, how does life proceed for you? Who are you when you are alone? Self-creation is a Holy Experience. It is sacred. It is you, deciding Who You Are.

I think we have two very important missions in life. One is to find out who we really are and the other one is to taste as much of life and experience as much of life as we can.

To explore different parts of yourself and different emotional lives... not to hide from who you are but to actually explore who you are.

If you can understand the inner life, then you can wear the uniform, the tattoos, or whatnot and realize that the things that are different about us become superficial.

I think if a character appeals to you, there are certain parts of yourself will come to the fore and other parts that will play down.

It is not the question, what am I going to be when I grow up; you should ask the question, who am I going to be when I grow up.

I'm really interested in stories about identity - who I am now versus who I used to be.

Why do I write? To investigate the mystery of existence. To tolerate myself. To get closer to everything that is outside of me.

A film reflects who you are as a building reflects the soul of its architect. I think what you feel and what you think and what you are is what the film is. It's not for me to talk about.

My whole life has been a search for finding myself, pretty much.

Ultimately, I don't think you can be a character who's completely alien or divorced from your own personality. It's probably true of every writer - it's probably true of every filmmaker, every songwriter - that, ultimately, every character you create is a facet of yourself.

There are moments when the inner life actually 'pays,' when years of self-scrutiny, conducted for no ulterior motive, are suddenly of practical use.

I'm reminded of who I am, who I was, and who I'm supposed to be.

People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night. I carry this thought, the child's mystery and terror of this thought, I feel this immensity in my soul every second of my life.

The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.

[in the true mad north] of introspection, where 'falcons of the inner eye' dive and die, glimpsing in their dying fall, all life's memory of existence.

The real essence of art turned out to be not something high up and far off - it was right inside my ordinary daily self - If a musician wants to become a finer artist, he must first become a finer person.

We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.

I know of no other advice than this: Go within and scale the depths of your being from which your very life springs forth.

The journey I'm taking is inside me. Just like blood travels down veins, what I'm seeing is my inner self and what seems threatening is just the echo of the fear in my heart.

The final mystery is oneself... Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul.

Truly know thyself, and to thine own self be true.

Perhaps the longest journey is the journey within.

I've always thought I was looking for myself whenever I traveled. Like a journey anywhere was really a journey through myself.

This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings. This music was her—the real plain her...This music did not take a long time or a short time. It did not have anything to do with time going by at all. She sat with her arms around her legs, biting her salty knee very hard. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen... Now that it was over there was only her heart beating like a rabbit and this terrible hurt.