Amanda > Amanda's Quotes

“What can I do with my happiness? How can I keep it, conceal it, bury it where I may never lose it? I want to kneel as it falls over me like rain, gather it up with lace and silk, and press it over myself again.”
― Anais Nin, Henry & June

“Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it.”
― Anais Nin

“Writers do not live one life, they live two. There is the living and then there is the writing. There is the second tasting, the delayed reaction.”
― Anais Nin

“Anaïs, I don't know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late. You numb me. [...] This is a little drunken, Anaïs. I am saying to myself "here is the first woman with whom I can be absolutely sincere." I remember your saying - "you could fool me, I wouldn't know it." When I walk along the boulevards and think of that. I can't fool you - and yet I would like to. I mean that I can never be absolutely loyal - it's not in me. I love women, or life, too much - which it is, I don't know. But laugh, Anaïs, I love to hear you laugh. You are the only woman who has a sense of gaiety, a wise tolerance - no more, you seem to urge me to betray you. I love you for that. [...]
I don't know what to expect of you, but it is something in the way of a miracle. I am going to demand everything of you - even the impossible, because you encourage it. You are really strong. I even like your deceit, your treachery. It seems aristocratic to me.”
― Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953

“I know why familles were created, with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.”
― Anais Nin

“If I did not move and dance between them the three would turn to stone, for they are passive [...] They would fall asleep if I lay still somewhere. Henry, Gonzalo, Hugh. [...] It is only my dancing, my dancing which animates them. I slide out of Gonzalo's bed like a snake. I slide out of Henry's bed. I slide out of Hugh's bed. [...]

I dance untrammeled - return to each full of the space in between, that change of air. Dancing, I find my flame and my joy, because I dance, slide, run, to the boat, to quai de Passy, to Villa Seurat; I keep the wind in the folds of my dress, the rain on my hair, and light in my eyes.”
― Anaïs Nin, Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

“But in my humble opinion, a house needs a good party once in a while; remind folks it exists.”
― Kate Morton, The House at Riverton

“I've met the folk that have the perfect garlands and sprays and wreaths, the folk that live in Williamsburg-style houses. And I've met the folk that live at the edge of town in two-bedroom ranch houses that have Frosty the Snowman, lights playing tag around the roof, and a Rudolph stuck askew somewhere on the lawn. I'd rather sit in the home of the atter with and errant couch spring poking my derriere because, truthfully, they're glad to have me, and they never look at my shoes and wonder where I'd been before I got there. ”
― Lisa Samson, Songbird

“If for us culture means museum and library and open house and art gallery, for them it meant the activities and amenities of everyday life... The rift is... between "folk" culture, where the unschooled can be wise, and print culture, which enslaved the other senses to the eye.”
― Nick Joaquín, Culture and History

“I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

“Controlling images were never just about the object of study—popular culture memes or characters from movies and television shows—but about the process of reproducing structural inequalities in our everyday lives. Social psychologists study how we acknowledge and reproduce status groups like “man,” “woman,” “black,” “white,” “Asian,” “poor,” “rich,” “novice,” and “expert” in routine interactions. These are statuses of people that we recognize as meaningful categories. When we interact with someone, a few things happen. We size up the person we are engaging with, scanning for any risks to our own social status. You don’t want to be the person who mistakes the company president for the janitor, for example. We also scan others’ perception of us. This is how all kinds of impromptu moments of cooperation make our day go smoothly. It’s the guy who sees you struggling to get something on the bus and coordinates the four people around you to help you get on. Or it’s the three women in a fast food line who all grab for a baby’s bottle just before it hits the floor. We cooperate in micromoments and in longer settings like the waiting room of a doctor’s office. And, when we are cooperating with strangers or near strangers, we are using all kinds of ideas about status to make the interaction work to our benefit.”
― Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays