Anaïs Nin

I believe one writes because on has to create a world in which one can live.

One's life shrinks or expands according to one's courage

Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back - a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.

And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.

How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.

 A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.

...and the time came when the risk it took to remain in a tightly closed bud became infinitely more painful than the risk it took to blossom.