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Составитель Tatyana Miller
Photograph Margarita Koshneva
Cover designer Samuel Miller
© Margarita Koshneva, photos, 2021
© Samuel Miller, cover design, 2021
ISBN 978-5-0053-5432-7
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
This book is a collection of quotes from letters that was selected from the books I personally read, and republished on my blog from July 2017 to March 2021.
Editor: Tatyana Miller
The cover: image by Margarita Kochneva from Pixabay (free for commercial use), design by Samuel Miller
Quotes from Letters
“This sickness is incurable and it is called: soul.”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Olga Kolbasine-Chernova, dated January 8, 1925, in: “The Same Solitude” by Catherine Ciepiela
“I have nothing to expect, and little to fear, in life – There are wounds that can never be healed – but they may be allowed to fester in silence without wincing.”
– Mary Wollstonecraft (1759—1797), from a letter to Gilbert Imlay (1754—1828), Tonsberg, dated July 30, 1795, in: “The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay”
“The state of being alone was my religion. You have become the center of my life, the goddess of one who does not believe in anything, the greatest happiness and unhappiness ever encountered.”
– Emil Cioran (1911—1995), from a letter to Friedgard Thoma, in: “Um nichts in der Welt”, translated from the Romanian translation by Christina Tudor-Sideri
“Follow me into this depth, into which we must descend with courage. But I would love to have you close to me! I’ve never felt as unhappy as I am now. I’m really touching the lowest point of my desperate loneliness. I swear it to you…”
– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated July 22, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani
“How good it would be if I could cry my eyes out on your chest, my heart is so sore. I could cry out like a wounded animal, I feel so torn and full of pain.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated January 28, 1942, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevang
“My always beloved: I swear, my love, I give you my true word of honor, that I have just finished kneeling before the statue of Our Lord of the Stations of the Cross, full of tears, to pray that you always love me, that you never forget me, and like me always; you can’t imagine, dear love, how painful was your great indifference toward me, as you showed it today so very clearly. How you rejected me, how cold you were toward your “little baby’!
I swear by everything I hold dear that all day long I haven’t been able to accept that it is possible to stop loving a person one professed to love so much! I can’t accept it. I haven’t eaten anything, nor do I feel like eating, the only thing I want to do is cry (except for the desire to be with you!); believe me, my eyes hurt from crying, I can’t convince myself that you may forget me, that you may stop loving your “little doll’. No, my little darling! You couldn’t have forgotten me?! You couldn’t have stopped loving me?!”
– Ophelia Queiroz (1900—1991), from a letter to Fernando Pessoa (1888—1935), dated March 20, 1920, 11:30 P.M., in: “In praise of Ophelia: an interpretation of Pessoa’s only love” by Alexandrino E. Severino and Hubert D. Jennings / “Pessoa Plural. A journal Of Pessoa Studies. №4″, 2013
“I should be always physically near you, no; it’s enough that you feel me near inside your heart, as before, always near; and that when you will not feel any longer that way, you’ll tell me, honestly, as a soul as noble and pure as yours cannot but do. This is it. Without false pity. Because I have a strong and proud spirit, and I can close with firm hand the door to life and shut myself up, mute in my grief and in death.”
– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated April 5, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani
“The more I loved what I had possessed, the more I must grieve for what I have lost, and the most exquisite joy and pleasure must end in the extreme of sorrow.”
– Héloïse d’Argenteuil (1101? —1163/4?), from a letter to Pierre Abelard (1079—1142), in: “The Letters of Heloise and Abelard. A translation of their correspondence and related writings”, translated from the French by Mary Martin McLaughlin with Bonnie Wheeler
“No, it is not silly to embrace each other on New Year’s day: on the contrary, it is good and it is nice. I thank you for having thought of it and I kiss you on your beautiful big eyes.”
– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated January 2, 1868, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“… those red roseleaf lips of yours should have been made no less for music and song than for
madness of kissing. Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry.”
– Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), from a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas (1870—1945), dated? January, 1893, in: “Oscar Wilde: A Life In Letters” by Merlin Holland
“We suffer from one thing only: Absurdity. But it is formidable and universal.”
– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to George Sand (1804—1876), dated November 14, 1871, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“I hope you are in bed – asleep – not thinking – just feeling what I feel – Our togetherness which nothing can disturb. – Maybe I’m old enough to have learned how stupid I can be! – You dearest Sweet One – Good Night – I kiss you & love you much – ”
– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Boston, Massachusetts, dated September 3, 1926, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“Without you, dearest dearest I couldn’t see or hear or feel or think – or live – I love you so and I’m never in all our lives going to let us be apart another night. It’s like begging for mercy of a storm or killing Beauty or growing old, without you. I want to kiss you so – and in the back where your dear hair starts and your chest – I love you – and I cant tell you how much – To think that I’ll die without your knowing – Goofo, you’ve got to try [to] feel how much I do – how inanimate I am when you’re gone – I can’t even hate these damnable people – nobodys got any right to live but us – and they’re dirtying up our world and I can’t hate them because I want you so – Come Quick – Come Quick to me – I could never do without you if you hated me and were covered with sores like a leper – if you ran away with another woman and starved me and beat me – I still would want you I know—
Lover, Lover, Darling – ”
– Zelda Fitzgerald (1900—1948), from a letter to Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896—1940), Westport, Connecticut, dated September 1920, in: “Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda. The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald”
“Give me the lips – I know they are waiting – ”
– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), New York City, dated late June, 1918, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“I will love you with all my heart & that surely is a good deal to say in this wicked world.”
– John Miller (1819—1895), from a letter to Sally Campbell Preston McDowell (1821—1895), Philadelphia, dated February 19, 1855, in: “If You Love That Lady Don’t Marry Her: The Courtship Letters of Sally Mcdowell and John Miller, 1854—1856″
“At night I painfully rack my brains to think up some means of salvation. But I can’t see anything.”
– Mikhail Bulgakov (1891—1940), from a letter to his brother Nikolay Bulgakov (1989—1966), Moscow, dated February 21, 1930, in: “Manuscripts don’t burn: Mikhail Bulgakov, a life in letters and diaries”, edited by J.A.R.Curtis
“So you are still working frantically? Unhappy one! you don’t know the ineffable pleasure of doing nothing! And how good work will seem to me after it! I shall delay it however as long as possible.”
– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated July 4, 1873, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“– May I kiss you? For a kiss is no more than an embrace, and to embrace without kissing is almost impossible!”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), dated Summer, 1926, in: “A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind Of Marina Tsvetaeva” by Alyssa W. Dinega
“Your letter this morning is the biggest letter I ever got – Some way or other it seems as if it is the biggest thing anyone ever said to me – and that it should come this morning when I am wondering – no I’m not exactly wondering but what I have been thinking in words – is—
I’ll be damned and I want to damn every other person in this little spot – like a nasty petty little sore of some kind – on the wonderful plains. The plains – the wonderful great big sky – makes me want to breathe so deep that I’ll break – There is so much of it – I want to get outside of it all – I would if I could – even if it killed me – ”
– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1886), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Canyon, Texas, dated September 3, 1916, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“Now I have – as expected – some difficulties with him. His complete dependency on me here makes things worse. I have now for the first time understood the nature of his trouble & with it, my incapacity of dealing with it. He wants to be maltreated.”
– Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein (1882—1958), from a letter to Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951), dated end of 1942, in: “Wittgensten’s Family letters. Corresponding with Ludwig”, translated from the German by Peter Winslow
“I miss not having you in the room when I read and not having you to come home to when I finish my day’s work. I really can’t express it but maybe you will understand. We share so much besides our physical attraction for each other that the physical is minimized tremendously when we are separated. When I feel a sudden pang of loneliness for you it’s because I miss the sight of you and the sound of you and the feeling that you are nearby when I need you the most, and how much I love you.”
– Captain Hunnicutt, from a letter to Virginia Dickerson, Monday, New Caledonia, dated August 17, 1942, in: “Dearest Virginia. Love Letters from a Cavalry Officer in the South Pacific”, edited by Gayle Hunnicutt
“I already love in you your beauty, but I am only beginning to love in you that which is eternal and ever previous – your heat, your soul. Beauty one could get to know and fall in love with in one hour and cease to love it as speedily; but the soul one must learn to know. Believe me, nothing on earth is given without labour, even love, the most beautiful and natural of feelings.”
– Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910), from a letter to Valeria Arseneva (1836—1909), dated November 2, 1856, in: “Tolstoi’s Love Letters: With A Study On The Autobiographical Elements In Tolstoi’s Work.”
“You have the knack for saying just the right thing. What you say only you can say. Inimitable. Superb. Seductive. Sensual. Considerate as cherubim. Sure, you have that thing between your legs as so all women, but with you it becomes an invisible jewel, a magic touchstone, a golden Easter Egg like from the beginning of the Universe. Guard it sacredly. Worship it in private – and in public pretend it isn’t there. Pretend that there you carry an opium pipe or whatever.”
– Henry Miller (1891—1980), from a letter to Brenda Venus (born 1947), dated January 27, 11:30 PM, 1979, in: “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus”
“I too wonder why I love you. Is it because you are a great man or a charming being? I don’t know. What is certain is that I experience a PARTICULAR sentiment for you and I cannot define it.”
– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to George Sand (1804—1876), dated January, 1867, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“Everything that keeps me away from you is exile. I have to somehow be ‘happy’ again or to collapse. Yet my decline is because of you. I find it mystifying and necessary.”
– Emil Cioran (1911—1995), from a letter to Friedgard Thoma, featured in her autobiography “Um nichts in der Welt”, translated from the Romanian translation by Christina Tudor-Sideri
“I liked the poem because it was like you. Simplicity tinged with melodrama. You’re a darling!”
– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to Frank Thompson (1918—1989), Oxford, dated early Summer 1940, in: “Iris Murdoch, a Writer At War. Letters and Diaries, 1939—1945″
“I will stop for today and hope and pray that you, beloved, are healthy and optimistic. I hug you most dearly, kiss you in my usual way and then long indescribably for you.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated July 22, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“Everything goes through the soul and back to the soul.”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Abram Vishnyak (1895—1943), in: “Florentine nights. Nine Letters With a Tenth Kept Back and an Eleventh Received”, featured in: “Possession without a touch: letters of Marina Tsvetaeva”, written in and translated from the Russian by Natalija Arlauskaite
“Twelve hours ago we were still together. Yesterday at this very hour I still held you in my arms… Do you remember? How distant it all is already! The night is now warm and gentle. I hear the great tulip tree by my window tremble in the wind and, raising my head, see the moon’s reflection on the water.”
– 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
“I’ve only one thing I want to live for and I do want to see you again, but I don’t know what will happen to me. You are going to stay away so long. Oh!”
– Carrie Hughes (1873—1938), from a letter to Langston Hughes (1902—1967), Oberlin, Ohio, dated 1935, in: “My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes’s Letters to Langston Hughes, 1926—1938”
“Yes, Sweetheart, I know you have been wanting to talk to me about many things. I didn’t encourage you because I hadn’t clarity enough myself – or was it inner quiet owing to my physically being unequal to what I demand from myself – so others too demand. Sometimes
talking gets in the way. Things are said which are not understood – they hurt – instead of clarifying. – So words become poison. – The beginning of our togetherness was much simpler than it became later. – That does not mean that our togetherness of today isn’t much deeper – really “finer” – than the togetherness of the first days. As I wrote you yesterday those were days of a great innocence – both you & I. In spirit I know you have lost nothing – nor have I lost anything. We have both grown greatly – one thro’ the other. – Singly neither would have grown
so strong. But the question of practical daily living is not as simple as it was – or we thought it was. And we are both older. – Even you can’t do many things you could ten years ago. Maybe you did things then you shouldn’t have done… But there is no going back – Our work shows our spirit – We can see what we have “gained” – what we may have “lost” – We have grown – that I know.”
– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 13, 1928, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“It’s a sin loving like that, absolutely and with the delirium…”
– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated December 1, 1949, in “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena
“Today I was hoping for news from you again; I thought there would be some but nothing came. Well, I hope perhaps on Monday. I am alone and am just very full of yearning for you.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated Saturday evening, 2/8/1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“My love, oh, my love, there’s nothing to dread when you’re with me – so I am writing this in vain, am I not? Everything will be all right, won’t it, my life?”
– Vladimir Nabokov (1899—1977), from a letter to Vera Nabokov (1902—1991), Prague, dated August 24, 1924, in: “Letters to Vera”, edited and translated from the Russian by Olga Voronina and Brian Boyd
“You are reading now I am thinking of your voice.”
– Paul Celan (1920—1970), from a letter to Ingeborg Bachmann (1926—1973), dated January 11, 1958
“I am so lonely I can hardly bear it. As one needs happiness so have I needed love; that is the deepest need of the human spirit. And as I love you utterly, so have you now become the whole world of my spirit. It is beside and beyond anything that you can ever do for me; it lies in what you are, dear love – to me so infinitely lovely that to be near you, to see you, hear you, is now the only happiness, the only life, I know. How long these hours are alone!
Yet is good for me to know the measure of my love and need, that I may at least be brought to so govern myself as never to lose the love and trust that you have given me.
Dear Frances, let us make and keep our love more beautiful than any love has ever been before.”
– Rockwell Kent (1882—1971), from a letter to his wife, Frances, dated 1926
“I have your letter, your dear letter that does me good with every word, that touches me as with a wave, so strong and surging, that surrounds me as with gardens and builds up heavens about me…”
– Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), from a letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861—1937), dated 1900, in: “Letters Of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892—1910”, translated from the German by Bannard Greene
“Art is expectation. When there is no more to expect all is over. Like love.”
– Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), Leningrad, dated April 11, 1954, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin
“I do not know if one ought to surrender oneself so entirely to another human being. But you have over me a supernatural power against which it would be futile to fight. Do not abuse your power; you could easily make me unhappy, and I would have no weapons against you. Above all, I beseech you, never banish your slave from you.”
– A.W. Schlegel (1767—1845), from a letter to Germaine de Staël (1766—1817), Coppet, dated October 18, 1805, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper
“I have been so flattered and stimulated by your letter that I seem to want to write you not a sheet, but a whole ream.”
– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to Dmitry Grigorovich (1822—1900), Moscow, dated March 28, 1886, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer
“I am amazed by the immediacy of your understanding and its affinity to mine-instantaneous, developing parallel to mine, always confidently guiding you…”
– Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from a letter to Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), Moscow, dated November 30, 1948, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin
“… we’re from opposite races, from very different backgrounds and opposing worldviews and sentiments. But despite all that I love you, just like that, though I’m not hopeful. This doesn’t prevent me from loving you.”
– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated November 28, 1949, in: “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena
“Beloved, forgive the typing errors because of the dusk. I am ashamed that today I have only written about myself and my worries – that happens when letters don’t arrive! I embrace you now very lovingly, kiss you many times in the usual way…”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated Saturday evening, August 2, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“… being an eminent author is not so great a delight… it’s a gloomy life. Work from morning to night, and not much sense to it. … Money – as scarce as hen’s teeth.
But perhaps I want no one except you when I place poppies, a great many poppies, and memory, just as much as memory…”
– Paul Celan (1920—1970), from a letter to Ingeborg Bachmann (1926—1973), dated June 20, 1949
“While I – that is, all the years until now – was sure we would meet, it never would have entered my head or my hand to thus make you visible – to me and to others. You were my secret – from all eyes, even my own. And only when I closed my eyes – did I sec you – and I saw nothing else. 1 opened my eyes – into yours. It turns out that now I simply – have pulled you out of myself – and set you against the wall – like an artist sets up a canvas – maybe farther – and stepped back.”
– 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, Jamey Gambrell
“excuse my dark writing… my love for you is different from your love for me; it’s of a very different type and category. Excuse those pages, dear. And for a few moments try to transport yourself to a soul who learned the bad habit of suffering and of having no hope in this world”
– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated December 1, 1949, in “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena
“Can one live peaceably, you say, when the human race is so absurd? I submit, while saying to myself that perhaps I am as absurd as every one else and that it is time to turn my mind to correcting myself.”
– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated January 25, 1872, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“Physically I am ‘okay,’ as they say these days – mentally, too, though I am terribly exhausted spiritually. I want to say ‘mortally,’ ‘irreparably,’ for there is a limit to all things.”
– Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), Leningrad, dated May 27, 1953, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin
“Sorrow is better than joy – and even in mirth the heart is sad – and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasts, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.”