Anais Nin Quotes

It would be too frightening for me to consider myself a role model. But I like the idea of not being afraid of letting your imagination rule you, to feel the freedom of expression, to let creativity be your overwhelming drive rather than other things.

Expressing feelings is linked directly with creation... In this ability to tap the sources of feeling and imagination lies the secret of abundance.

Without the word dream, or the concept dream, and without the word blue and the emotions, I would have been really limited in the things I've written and performed.

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

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

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

Call it vanity, call it arrogant presumption, call it what you wish, but I would grope for the nearest open grave if I had no newspaper to work for, no need to search for and sometimes find the winged word that just fits, no keen wonder over what each unfolding day may bring.

My parents are creative on many fronts, and they pushed me to be that way, too. They wanted me to write, actually.

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.

Creativity is the greatest expression of liberty.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

I started to write as a child as soon as I could read, or even before, when my mother read me Beatrix Potter at bedtime. Writing seemed to me to be the only sensible way to live and be happy.

I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.

I live for the blank page.

My greatest joy comes from creativity: from feeling that I have been able to identify a certain aspect of human nature and crystallise a phenomenon in words.

Creative freedom is a huge carrot.

If I can feel freedom then I can create.

I write from my imagination, not from what I've read in books or seen on TV or to make money. I wrote from an idea I was passionate about.

My favorite thing is to be alone in a room with a blank paper in front of me and the time to fill it.

Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.

Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

When I turned to writing fantasy, and writing for young people, it was joyous. It was like discovering an underground lake of ideas that went on forever.

Yes, I do often write poems from the mind, but I hope I don't ignore feelings and emotions.

I don't have any office; I can write everywhere. So, I put a piece of paper on the table, and then I travel. Literally, writing for me is like travelling. It's getting out of myself and living another life - maybe a better life.

I don't feel so alive if I'm not being creative.