"There are very few human
beings who receive the truth,
complete and staggering,
by instant illumination.
Most of them acquire it
fragment by fragment,
on a small scale,
by successive developments,
cellularly,
like a laborious mosaic."
-Anais Nin

"We don't see things as they are,
we see them as we are."
-Anais Nin

"Dreams pass into the reality of action.
From the action stems the dream again;
and this interdependence produces
the highest form of living."
-Anais Nin

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.
We grow sometimes in one dimension,
and not in another, unevenly.
We grow partially. We are relative.
We are mature in one realm,
childish in another."
-Anais Nin

"The shell is America's
most active contribution to
the formation of character.
A tough hide.
Grow it early."
-Anais Nin

"It takes courage to push
yourself to places that you
have never been before...
to test your limits...
to break through barriers.
And the day came when the
risk it took to remain
tight inside the bud
was more painful than
the risk it took to blossom."
-Anais Nin

"Each friend represents a world in us,
a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that
a new world is born."
-Anais Nin