Anais Nin Quotes

Words, yes, formulating things, creating something from your heart, it is something very necessary, yes.

By writing I can live in ways that I could not survive.

We all need to have a creative outlet - a window, a space - so we don't lose track of ourselves.

When I don't write, I feel my world shrink. I lose my fire, my color.

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

Doing acting opened up other creative outlets; it made me feel freer as an artist.

Writing has always been an incredible outlet for me to feel like I have a voice, even when sometimes I was the only one reading my work. It has been a way for me to unlock my imagination. That's when the world becomes yours, after all.

If I'm not writing, I'm not fully living. It has become the essential element that defines who I am.

Honestly, the choice is: I can be a cheerful person, more awake to correction, more of a force for good ... when I'm writing. Or I can be the opposite of all those things, when I'm not writing.

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.

Art! What a concept! It saved my life! A place where you can do as you please!

You don't need to go to a therapist, you don't need to do all kinds of things. If you want to write, you physically have to do it.

I started to write songs. And I started to like what I was writing. I think it's a new way for me to express things that are closer to myself than when I play a role, because, of course, it's really not me. I'm finding a new way. I don't know what it's going to be. But I know that I will need to give it to people one day.

So many people think that practicing an art is a good way to make a living. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. I'm talking about singing in the shower, I'm talking about dancing to the radio, I'm talking about writing a poem to a friend.

Writing is the one art form that really should allow you to hang yourself.

Dramatic reading and writing for kids can open a window to individuality and to expression that nothing else does, because all of a sudden the pressure is off and they just bring themselves to the table.

Writing does for me what giving milk does for a cow.

Everything in life is writable.

I've always written songs for the sake of my own sanity and expression.

Love is what makes you do everything. It really does conquer all. With my first album, I was writing about empowerment hoping that would make it true. And now it is. I'm in charge. I make the rules. I've been writing since I was nine years old and I'm very much involved in the creative process. And now that I'm in a happier place in my personal life, I'm spitting songs out left and right.

If I don't write, I begin to feel unsettled and uneasy, as I gather people do who are not allowed to dream.

When we are writing, or painting, or composing, we are, during the time of creativity, freed from normal restrictions, and are opened to a wider world, where colors are brighter, sounds clearer, and people more wondrously complex than we normally realize.

When I feel something very intensely or deeply or personally, I can go to extremes of self-expression or self-analysis by writing a poem - more than I can just talking to somebody or writing prose.

The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write, I believe are in your heart. You just have to open up your heart and not be afraid to get them out.

Not to write, for many of us, is to die.