Quotes from my Blog. Letters

“No matter how much I write I still can’t express to you, even remotely, how much I love you nor how anxious I am to be with you. You will just have to deduce it from the fact that I spend at least two hours a day writing. Quantity is not as good as quality – but I hope it is worth a little bit. If the length of my letters does as much as hint to you the love and desire that prompts it, then they have been well worth the effort. I love you.”

– Captain Hunnicutt, from a letter to Virginia Dickerson, dated July 3, 1944, in: “Dearest Virginia. Love Letters from a Cavalry Officer in the South Pacific”, edited by Gayle Hunnicutt

“And why do you fear me? Would I ever do anything to you? I’d surely never do anything bad. And what would I do to you? I know, I know! I long for it unutterably! Is that why you’re frightened?”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated May 2, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell

“You write with your heart’s blood, I with ink”

– Henry Miller (1891—1980), from a letter to Brenda Venus (born 1947), dated August 1, 1978, in: “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus”

“You know you are an awful lot to me – I have to laugh when I say it – It sounds so funny to say it – As if you didn’t know – And still something makes me say it in such a raw way this morning”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), New York City, dated January 15, 1918, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“… and don’t think negative thoughts about me. I’m begging you”

– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated November 8, 1949, in: “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena

“I long for you more than for the sun; in fact I’d like a cloud in which we’d see only one another and not the others.”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated May 5, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček, translated by John Tyrrell

“Listen, tell me: should we not live together anymore?

Be brave. Write immediately.

I can’t stay here much longer.

Listen to your heart.

Now, tell me if I should come join you.

My life is yours.”

– Arthur Rimbaud (1854—1891), from a letter to his Paul Verlaine (1844—1896), dated July 4, 1873, in: “I Promise to be Good. The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud”, translated from the French by Watt Mason

“I wish you were in front of me – would hold me close just a minute before I go on to the things I must do – ”

– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Canyon, Texas, dated July 2, 1917, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“… now and again, when I re-read my letters, I am a little embarrassed because they talk of almost nothing of substance and I wonder what this serious man will think of me, the whole letter being such a lot of nonsense. Then I shake my head and laugh at myself.”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated Saturday, December 14, 1940, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange

“I am like a fly without a head; I don’t know where to turn, nor what to do; hours go by, while I’m sitting here at the desk, thinking of so many things… if anybody, in hiding, were here spying on me, he’d think I was doped.”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated February 28, 1930, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“And good-night, dear friend of my heart… Why aren’t you here? It is horrid not to live next door to those one loves.

– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated 1867, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“Do you know what I want – when I want? Darkness, light, transfiguration. The most remote headland of another’s soul – and my own. Words that one will never hear or speak. The improbable. The miraculous. A miracle.

You will get (for in the end you will surely get me) a strange, sad, dreaming, singing little monster struggling to escape from your hand.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke”, translated from the Russian by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, and Jamey Gambrell

“Sometimes I could just undress you and lick you from head to toe. In my sleep I run my hands over the curves in your physique – what a thrill! Like being proficient in runs on the piano.”

– Henry Miller (1891—1980), from a letter to Brenda Venus (born 1947), dated October 7, 1976, in: “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus”

“I write you, me beloved one, very often, and you write very little. You are wicked and naughty, very naughty, as much as you are fickle.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte (1769—1821), from a letter to Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763—1814), Verona, dated July 17, 1796 (pbs.org)

“I’m just blessed that I’ve confessed my love to you, that I’ve experienced confessing love to someone. This never happened before… And in life that mutual feeling has to fight its way through! Believe me, there’d be no need for life if it couldn’t bubble over with that intoxication. It’s the height of existence; it’s like a flower which waits for the bee to bring the pollen.

The flower must surely grieve when it finishes flowering in the cold, in the frost.”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated May 2, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell

“If I only could make you realise how very badly I miss you and how empty everything is for me without you. At times you feel that the difficulties of our movements and our existence weigh on me, and at times I do not do things easily or gracefully. But when you are not there I realise how much I love doing things for you and how nothing is really the matter as long as we share things.”

– Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942), from a letter to Elsie Rosaline Masson (1890—1935), dated Monday October 3, 1933, in: “The Story of a Marriage. The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson”

“I only wished to send you one more kiss before I went to sleep, to tell you that I love you… So, a kiss, a quick one, you know what kind, and one more, and oh again still more, and still more under your chin, in that spot I love on your very soft skin, and on your chest, where I place my heart.”

– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to Louise Colet (1810—1876), in: “Rage and fire: a life of Louise Colet, pioneer feminist, literary star, Flaubert’s muse” by Francine du Plessix Gray

“When I am alone and have had no news from you for quite a while, then I get despondent.”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated December 24, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange

“ – Maybe it’s stupid to be in love. – To have a heart. All weakness. All meaningless. To live & be – without thought of other – maybe that’s the way.”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 5, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“I’ll send you, one of these days, a bunch of poems I composed during these lost evenings. They are written for you alone and not for other readers – not because there is anything bad, but because they are only for you.”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated April 8, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“This paper feels too little for me but I’m going to try to write to you anyway – I guess we often do things in spite of difficulties —.”

– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1886), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Charlottesville, Virginia, dated August 6, 1916, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“What do I get out of it when they’re always telling me that I appear young? They should rather ask for whom my heart aches and give me a cure. I’d drink it by the spoonful not only three times daily but all the time. You don’t understand this, and that’s good.”