Jessica

“Since that talk with Henry, when I admitted more than I had ever admitted to myself, my life has altered and become deformed. The restlessness which was vague and nameless has become intolerably clear. Here is where it stabs me, at the center of the most perfect, the most steadfast structure, marriage. When this shakes, then my whole life crumbles. My love for Hugo has become fraternal. I look almost with horror at this change, which is not sudden, but slow in appearing on the surface. I had closed my eyes to all the signs. Above all, I dreaded admitting that I didn't want Hugo's passion. I had counted on the ease with which I would distribute my body. But it is not true. It was never true. When I rushed towards Henry, it was all Henry. I am frightened because I have realized the full extent of my imprisonment. Hugo has sequestered me, fostered my love of solitude. I regret now all those years when he gave me nothing but his love and I turned into myself for the rest. Starved, dangerous years.
I should break up my whole life, and I cannot do it. My life is not as important as Hugo's, and Henry doesn't need me because he has June. But whatever in me has grown outside and beyond Hugo will go on.”
― Anaïs Nin, Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932

“Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It's a sort of spiritual clap, I should say.”
― Henry Miller

“Better a good venereal disease than a moribund peace and quiet.”
― Henry Miller, Quiet Days in Clichy

“I have seen romanticism outlast the realistic. I have seen men forget the beautiful women they have possessed, forget the prostitutes, and remember the first woman they idolized, the woman they could never have. The woman who aroused them romantically holds them.”
― Anaïs Nin, Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love": The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932