I only feel close to people who arouse my energy, who make enormous demands of me, who are capable of enriching me with experience, pain, people who … - Anaïs Nin

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

We write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely...When I don’t write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.

The dream, scrutinized by scientists in various experiments, has been found to be an absolute necessity to man.