Abdullah

“That is why I always lie. I can’t have a truthful relationship. Gore’s idealization of me sets my pattern. I begin truthfully, but then I withhold what hurts him, what would destroy his illusion. I hide my psychoanalysis, my real age, my sexual needs, my past lovers and experience, my negro lover, and I give him his dream, his ideal woman. But where am I in the end?”
― Anaïs Nin, Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin

“I remember finding him very attractive at the time; though any man who pays attention to you, at that age, can transform from frog to prince in the time it takes to tell you he likes your hair.”
― Eliza Clark, Boy Parts

“When I awakened at dawn, I had a moment of repulsion, of shame. When my feelings aren’t touched, I feel shame, as man does with the whore.”
― Anaïs Nin, Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin

“I can only make notes. With Staff, it is my idealization of myself and others. Behind my masochism lies sadism. Behind my indirectness does not lie femininity, but a crippled, fearful self who does not dare. Behind my idealizations lie a primitive woman, indirect uses of power, subtle forms of destructiveness, this hunger.”
― Anaïs Nin, Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin