Many couples, many people, are not living with real human beings, but with their ghosts. Who has not followed for years the spell of a particular tone of voice, from voice to voice, as the fetishist follows a beautiful foot, scarcely seeing the woman herself? A voice, a mouth, an eye, all stemming from the original fountain of our first desire, directing it, enslaving us, until we choose to unravel the fatal web and free ourselves.
Anais NinI looked at it [revolver] as if it reminded me of a crime I had committed with an irrepressible smile such as rises sometimes to peopleโs lips in the face of great catastrophes which are beyond their grasp, the smile that comes at times on certain womenโs faces while they are saying they regret the harm they have done. It is the smile of nature quietly and proudly asserting its natural right to kill.
Anais NinMy mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I canโt be loved as I am.
Anais NinIs devotion to others a cover for the hungers and the needs of the self, of which one is ashamed? I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not virtue. It was a disguise.
Anais NinWhat we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered. The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny. One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background. All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.
Anais Nin