words of the Muse,

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"What everyone forgets is that passion is not merely a heightened sensual fusion, but a way of life which produces, as in the mystics, an ecstatic awareness of the whole of life, that it is in this way that poetry becomes the greatest truth, by intensification, condensation of experience. While poetry is considered by most as illusion or delusion, it is the only reality, the moment when we are completely alive."

— Anais Nin

"Don’t wait for it. Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. And then the love will come to you, then it comes to you. It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened to me."

— Anais Nin

“You know I have friends who used to laugh at me when I said we have to create a relationship. They thought relationship is a miracle, it just happens, it comes, we find it, and there it is. But it’s not true. I never found that to be true. One friend was amazed at things that happened in a relationship over the years. And I said: “Yes, we created that. This friendship was created with talking, with struggle, with crises.” So wait until you feel right within yourself, and then you’ll feel right towards others.”

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.

Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.

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anais nin, if you are a woman and don't know Anais Nin - check her out. She didn't let men or the "status quo" limit her beliefs or actions. Amazing role model

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“She is very startling, pixie-like, otherworldly…One feels if one were to touch her, she would crumble into silver dust.” Susan Sontag about Anaïs Nin, from Reborn: Journals & Notebooks

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“I want to fall in love in such a way that the mere sight of a man, even a block away from me, will shake and pierce me, will weaken me, and make me tremble and soften and melt.” ― Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus 

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Learn more at lettersofnote.com

In 1932, months after first meeting in Paris and despite both being married, Cuban diarist Anaïs Nin and hugely influential novelist Henry Miller began an incredibly intense love affair that would last for many years and, along the way, generate countless passionate love letters. Below, in my humble opinion, is one of the most powerful examples, written by Miller in August of 1932 shortly after a visit to Nin's home in Louveciennes. [image links to transcript of the letter]

 from flickr

 22Repins  4Likes

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“When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence. I see in you that part of me which is you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, we share the same madness.” ― Anaïs Nin

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“I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. In reality those who satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my ”idea of them.” - Anaïs Nin

 from Flickr - Photo Sharing!