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Life & Wisdom Quote by Anais Nin

"There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do"

About this Quote

Freedom here isnt a flag you wave; its a room you build in your own head, then decide to live in. Anais Nin frames imagination not as escapism but as strategy: a way to slip the locks of whatever era, gender script, or domestic arrangement is trying to define you. The line works because it quietly demotes "reality" from final authority to raw material. Transcend is the tell: shes not denying the world so much as refusing to let it be the only world.

The subtext is both defiant and self-implicating. By adding "as I try to do", Nin signals that this is practice, not pose. Freedom isnt a stable identity; its an ongoing act of creation, with relapse built in. That small clause also protects her from the easy critique that imagination is indulgent. Trying is labor. Trying is discipline. The sentence becomes a writers manifesto that doubles as a survival tactic.

Context matters: Nin wrote through two world wars and the tightening social codes of the early 20th century, especially around womens desire, marriage, and authorship. Her diaries and fiction made interior life a battleground where conventional morality could be revised, rerouted, or simply ignored. Read that way, imagination isnt a decorative accessory to real life; its contraband. When the outside world polices your choices, the inner world becomes not a retreat but a frontier.

Quote Details

TopicFreedom
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Nin, Anais. (2026, January 17). There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-are-many-ways-to-be-free-one-of-them-is-to-40548/

Chicago Style
Nin, Anais. "There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-are-many-ways-to-be-free-one-of-them-is-to-40548/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-are-many-ways-to-be-free-one-of-them-is-to-40548/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.

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Anais Nin on Freedom and Imagination
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About the Author

Anais Nin

Anais Nin (February 21, 1903 - January 14, 1977) was a Author from USA.

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