Revered as one of the most dedicated diarists in literary history, Anaïs Nin has given us a wealth of poetic and poignant meditations on life and the human condition. This first installment in an ongoing collaboration with creative polymath Debbie Millman — whose own poetic and poignant meditations you might recall from recent Literary Jukebox editions — captures one of Nin’s most timeless insights on love, culled from her many volumes of diaries and her love letters with Henry Miller. Drawn in Debbie’s singular style of artful lettering, the artwork is available on Society6, with proceeds benefiting A Room of Her Own, a foundation supporting women writers and artists. Enjoy:

UPDATE: Happy news! Part 2 of the series is now available.

Previous Brain Pickings artist series have included Susan Sontag on art and on love by Wendy MacNaughton, Anaïs Nin on life by Lisa Congdon, and Salvador Dalí’s “My Struggle” by Molly Crabapple.

See more of Debbie’s beautiful visual essays and poems online and in print, and follow her on Twitter.