French-Cuban diarist Anaïs Nin was born in Neuilly 120 years ago today, so I’ve pulled together a few of my favourite passages from her letters. And if you’d like to read (and her a reading of) her letter to “The Collector” in full, see this earlier newsletter.

I write as I breathe, naturally, flowingly, spontaneously, out of an overflow, not as a substitute for life. I am more interested in human beings than in writing, more interested in lovemaking than in writing, more interested in living than in writing. More interested in becoming a work of art than in creating one. I am more interesting than what I write. I am gifted in relationship above all things. I have no confidence in myself and great confidence in others. I need love more than food. I stumble and make errors, and often want to die. When I look most transparent is probably when I have just come out of the fire. I walk into the fire always, and come out more alive.

Anaïs Nin
Letter to Leo Lerman
December 1946