Quotes about letter (1028 quotes, page 2)

“During his illness, Lenin repeatedly addressed letters and proposals to the leading bodies and congresses of the party. It must be definitely stated that all these letters and suggestions were invariably delivered to their destination and they were all brought to the knowledge of the delegates to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses, and have invariably exercised their influence on the decisions of the party. If all of these letters have not been published, it is because their author did not intend them to be published. Comrade Lenin has not left any “Testament”; the character of his relations to the party, and the character of the party itself, preclude the possibility of such a “Testament.” The bourgeois and Menshevik press generally understand under the designation of “Testament” one of Comrade Lenin’s letters (which is so much altered as to be almost unrecognizable) in which he gives the party some organizational advice. The Thirteenth Party Congress devoted the greatest attention to this and to the other letters, and drew the appropriate conclusions. All talk with regard to a concealed or mutilated “Testament” is nothing but a despicable lie, directed against the real will of Comrade Lenin and against the interests of the party created by him.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/07/lenin.htm,Letter on Max Eastman's Book, July 1, 1925

Lie , Exercises , Understanding , Knowledge

“Apart from autograph hunters, I get… many letters from Hindus, beseeching me to adopt some form of mysticism, from young Americans, asking me where I think the line should be drawn in petting, and from Poles, urging me to admit that while all other nationalism may be bad that of Poland is wholly noble. I get letters from engineers who cannot understand Einstein, and from parsons who think that I cannot understand Genesis, from husbands whose wives have deserted them – not (they say) that that would matter, but the wives have taken the furniture with them, and what in these circumstances should an enlightened male do? …I get letters (concerning whose genuineness I am suspicious) trying to get me to advocate abortion, and I get letters from young mothers asking my opinion of bottle-feeding.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Mr C. L. Aiken, March 19, 1930
1930s

Understanding , Thinking

“If the Letter is to be in answer to another, begin by getting out that other letter and reading it through, in order to refresh your memory, as to what it is you have to answer, and as to your correspondent’s present address (otherwise you will be sending your letter to his regular address in London, though he has been careful in writing to give you his Torquay address in full).”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

Memory , Reading

“I won't be here long, I am working as hard as I can, as I told you [in a letter] yesterday, I am very happy to be here Etretat, Normandy] and I hope to come up with something good, in any case I will bring lots of studies back with me so I can work on some big things at home.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in Monet's letter from Etretat to his second [future] wife Alice Hoschedé, 1883; as cited in: K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 51
1870 - 1890

Hope , Home , Study , Happiness

“But this letter is long, Sir, and it is time to conclude it.
I accuse Lt. Col. du Paty de Clam of being the diabolical creator of this miscarriage of justice — unwittingly, I would like to believe — and of defending this sorry deed, over the last three years, by all manner of ludricrous and evil machinations.
I accuse General Mercier of complicity, at least by mental weakness, in one of the greatest inequities of the century.
I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands absolute proof of Dreyfus’s innocence and covering it up, and making himself guilty of this crime against mankind and justice, as a political expedient and a way for the compromised General Staff to save face.
I accuse Gen. de Boisdeffre and Gen. Gonse of complicity in the same crime, the former, no doubt, out of religious prejudice, the latter perhaps out of that esprit de corps that has transformed the War Office into an unassailable holy ark.
I accuse Gen. de Pellieux and Major Ravary of conducting a villainous enquiry, by which I mean a monstrously biased one, as attested by the latter in a report that is an imperishable monument to naïve impudence.
I accuse the three handwriting experts, Messrs. Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting reports that were deceitful and fraudulent, unless a medical examination finds them to be suffering from a condition that impairs their eyesight and judgement.
I accuse the War Office of using the press, particularly L’Eclair and L’Echo de Paris, to conduct an abominable campaign to mislead the general public and cover up their own wrongdoing.
Finally, I accuse the first court martial of violating the law by convicting the accused on the basis of a document that was kept secret, and I accuse the second court martial of covering up this illegality, on orders, thus committing the judicial crime of knowingly acquitting a guilty man.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)

War , Secret , Justice , Law

“At first, being a female role model really terrified me. But it hasn't turned out to be an awful burden. I get a lot of letters from women who tell me that, after watching Xena, they have bought the Harley-Davidson they always wanted or left an abusive relationship.”

Lucy Lawless (1968) New Zealand actress

Robin Eggar (July 27, 1997) "Is it a bird? - Interview", The Sunday Times, p. Style 8.

Women

“You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I received your very agreeable letter of the 22nd. of May I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much, however, as you may think. You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave — especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that any one is bidding you to yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligations, under the constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes, and unrewarded toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio, there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continued torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Letter to Joshua F. Speed (1855)

Hate , People , Feeling , Exercises

“.. learn to draw: that's where most of you [Troyon's pupils] are falling down today…. draw with all your might; you can never learn to much. However, don’t neglect painting, go to the country from time to time and make studies and above all develop them..' [Monet is quoting in his letter Troyon, a friend of Boudin in Paris]”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

in a letter to , 1859; as quoted in Discovering Art, – The life time and work of the World's greatest Artists, MONET; K.E. Sullivan, Brockhamptonpress, London 2004, p. 11
1850 - 1870

Quotes , Study , Learning , Time

“The shelves of books we haven't written, like those of books we haven't read, stretches out into the darkness of the universal library's farthest space. We are always at the beginning of the beginning of the letter A.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Endpaper Pages, p. 309.
A History of Reading (1996)

Books , Universe , Reading

“Whoever said money can't buy you happiness… obviously didn't have enough of the stuff. (cf. "Letters from Zedelghem", p. 78”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

Nook Edition)
"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", p. 342 (Nook edition)
Cloud Atlas (2004)

Money , Happiness

“Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities — all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Citizenship in a Republic (1910)

Life , Men , Way , Feeling

“All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the letter but by the spirit — the spirit which unfolds itself with the growth of life in history.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Preface
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)

Life , History

“Non-Jats also vote for him. How many districts are there in UP and how many districts are there in which in which this animal of a Jat is found? Is there anything in my life to suggest that I am casteist? In 1954, I wrote a letter to Nehru, it is on record, in which I suggested that all candidates for gazette jobs must marry outside their own caste. And if a man married inside his caste while holding such a job, he would have to resign.”

Charan Singh (1902–1987) prime minister of India

Stig Toft Madsen, et al, in: "Trysts with Democracy: Political Practice in South Asia}, P.80

Life , Animals

“If doubtful whether to end with “yours faithfully”, or “yours truly”, or “your most truly”, &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach “yours affectionately”), refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing (1890)

“Thank you for your letter and for the enclosure which I return herewith. I have been wondering whether there is any means of preventing the confusion between you and me, and I half-thought that we might write a joint letter to The Times in the following terms: Sir, To prevent the continuation of confusions which frequently occur, we beg to state that neither of us is the other. Do you think this would be a good plan?”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Lord Russell of Liverpool, February 18, 1959
1950s

Thinking , Time

“There'll be a day when I shall begin something that I shan't finish — a walk, or a letter, or a sentence, or a dream.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face
Context: When you look straight on, you end by seeing the immense event — death. There is only one thing which really gives the meaning of our whole life, and that is our death. In that terrible light may they judge their hearts who will one day die. Well I know that Marie's death would be the same thing in my heart as my own, and it seems to me also that only within her of all the world does my own likeness wholly live. We are not afraid of the too great sincerity which goes the length of these things; and we talk about them, beside the bed which awaits the inevitable hour when we shall not awake in it again. We say: —
"There'll be a day when I shall begin something that I shan't finish — a walk, or a letter, or a sentence, or a dream.".

Dreams

“The style of this letter is unexceptionable, for Faraday could not write otherwise than as a gentleman; but the letter shows that had he willed it he could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's gentleness and sweetness and tenderness. It is all true, but it is very incomplete.”

John Tyndall (1820–1893) British scientist

"Points of Character", p. 37.
Faraday as a Discoverer (1868)
Context: A point highly illustrative of the character of Faraday now comes into view. He gave an account of his discovery of Magneto-electricity in a letter to his friend M. Hachette, of Paris, who communicated the letter to the Academy of Sciences. The letter was translated and published; and immediately afterwards two distinguished Italian philosophers took up the subject, made numerous experiments, and published their results before the complete memoirs of Faraday had met the public eye. This evidently irritated him. He reprinted the paper of the learned Italians in the Philosophical Magazine accompanied by sharp critical notes from himself. He also wrote a letter dated Dec. 1,1832, to Gay Lussac, who was then one of the editors of the Annales de Chimie in which he analysed the results of the Italian philosophers, pointing out their errors, and' defending himself from what he regarded as imputations on his character. The style of this letter is unexceptionable, for Faraday could not write otherwise than as a gentleman; but the letter shows that had he willed it he could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's gentleness and sweetness and tenderness. It is all true, but it is very incomplete. You cannot resolve a powerful nature into these elements, and Faraday's character would have been less admirable than it was had it not embraced forces and tendencies to which the silky adjectives "gentle" and "tender" would by no means apply. Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. He was a man of excitable and fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless passion. "He that is slow to anger" saith the sage, "is greater than the mighty, and he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city." Faraday was not slow to anger, but he completely ruled his own spirit, and thus, though he took no cities, he captivated all hearts.

“Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 421. Regarding the interpretation of the Necessary and Proper Clause.
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Context: We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the Government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended. But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the national legislature that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution which will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it in the manner most beneficial to the people. Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.

“The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The History of the Quakers (1762)
Context: This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay."
The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.

Personality , Happiness

“It is a matter of honor with me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal in relation to anti-Semitism, namely, opposed to it, as I am in my writings. I have recently been persecuted with letters and Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheets. My disgust with this party (which would like the benefit of my name only too well!) is as pronounced as possible”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Objecting to his sister Elisabeth, about her marriage to the anti-semite Bernhard Förster, in a Christmas letter (1887) http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/nlett1887.htm in Friedrich Nietzsche's Collected Letters, Vol. V, #479
Context: You have committed one of the greatest stupidities — for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole way of life which fills me again and again with ire or melancholy. … It is a matter of honor with me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal in relation to anti-Semitism, namely, opposed to it, as I am in my writings. I have recently been persecuted with letters and Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheets. My disgust with this party (which would like the benefit of my name only too well!) is as pronounced as possible, but the relation to Förster, as well as the aftereffects of my former publisher, the anti-Semitic Schmeitzner, always brings the adherents of this disagreeable party back to the idea that I must belong to them after all. … It arouses mistrust against my character, as if publicly I condemned something which I have favored secretly — and that I am unable to do anything against it, that the name of Zarathustra is used in every Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheet, has almost made me sick several times.

“I think he imagined the Politburo would hold up his letter and say, "Hold everything, Kenneth Hockney has written again!"”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

Interview with Nigel Farndale, "The talented Mr. Hockney," The Telegraph, (15 November 2001)
2000s
Context: He [Hockney's father] hardly ever left Bradford. He was a member of CND and a socialist with a rather romantic and naive idea of what Soviet Russia was like, all cornfields and ballet. He would have gone mad for email because he was always sending letters to world leaders — Eisenhower, Mao, Stalin — telling them what was what. I think he imagined the Politburo would hold up his letter and say, "Hold everything, Kenneth Hockney has written again!"

Imagination , Thinking

“He that hath no musical instruction is a child in Music; he that hath no letters is a child in Learning; he that is untaught is a child in Life.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

105
Golden Sayings of Epictetus

Life , Music , Learning

“I don't want to use four-letter words.”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

“This is indeed India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations — the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined. Even now, after the lapse of a year, the delirium of those days in Bombay has not left me, and I hope never will.”

Mark Twain book Following the Equator

Ch. XXXVIII http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5811/5811-h/5811-h.htm
Following the Equator (1897)

God , Religion , History , Country

“His work, called Aryabhatiya, is composed of three parts, in only the first of which use is made of a special notation of numbers. It is an alphabetical system in which the twenty-five consonants represent 1-25, respectively; other letters stand for 30, 40, …., 100 etc. The other mathematical parts of Aryabhatiya consists of rules without examples. Another alphabetic system prevailed in Southern India, the numbers 1-19 being designated by consonants, etc.”

Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer

Florian Cajori in: A History of Mathematical Notations http://books.google.co.in/books?id=_byqAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT961&dq=Notations&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Wz65U5WYDIKulAW1qIGYDA&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Notation&f=false, Courier Dover Publications, 26 September 2013, p. 47.

Mathematics , Parting

“If your stars go against you, the fantastic size of your cock will get you precisely nowhere, however much Virro may have drooled at the spectacle of your naked charms, though love-letters come in by the dozen, imploring your favors.”

Juvenal book Satires

Nam si tibi sidera cessant,
nil faciet longi mensura incognita nervi,
quamvis te nudum spumanti Virro labello
viderit et blandae adsidue densaeque tabellae
sollicitent, autos gar ephelketai andra kinaidos.
IX, line 33.
Satires, Satire IX

Love , Star , Making love

“Thus, almost everything is imitation. The idea of The Persian Letters was taken from The Turkish Spy. Boiardo imitated Pulci, Ariosto imitated Boiardo. The most original minds borrowed from one another. Miguel de Cervantes makes his Don Quixote a fool; but pray is Orlando any other? It would puzzle one to decide whether knight errantry has been made more ridiculous by the grotesque painting of Cervantes, than by the luxuriant imagination of Ariosto. Metastasio has taken the greatest part of his operas from our French tragedies. Several English writers have copied us without saying one word of the matter. It is with books as with the fire in our hearths; we go to a neighbor to get the embers and light it when we return home, pass it on to others, and it belongs to everyone”

Voltaire book Letters on the English

"Lettre XII: sur M. Pope et quelques autres poètes fameux," Lettres philosophiques (1756 edition)
Variants:
He looked on everything as imitation. The most original writers, he said, borrowed one from another. Boyardo has imitated Pulci, and Ariofio Boyardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire; we fetch it from our neighbour, kindle it as home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
Historical and Critical Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire (1786) by Louis Mayeul Chaudon, p. 348
What we find in books is like the fire in our hearths. We fetch it from our neighbors, we kindle it at home, we communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.
As translated in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2008), by James Geary, p. 373
Original: (fr) Ainsi, presque tout est imitation. L’idée des Lettres persanes est prise de celle de l’Espion turc. Le Boiardo a imité le Pulci, l’Arioste a imité le Boiardo. Les esprits les plus originaux empruntent les uns des autres. Michel Cervantes fait un fou de son don Quichotte; mais Roland est-il autre chose qu'un fou? Il serait difficile de décider si la chevalerie errante est plus tournée en ridicule par les peintures grotesques de Cervantes que par la féconde imagination de l'Arioste. Métastase a pris la plupart de ses opéras dans nos tragédies françaises. Plusieurs auteurs anglais nous ont copiés, et n'en ont rien dit. Il en est des livres comme du feu de nos foyers; on va prendre ce feu chez son voisin, on l’allume chez soi, on le communique à d’autres, et il appartient à tous.

Home , Painting , Imagination , Light

“It was the year they fell into devastating love. Neither one could do anything except think about the other, dream about the other, and wait for letters with the same impatience they felt when they answered them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love , Dreams , Thinking , Waiting

“Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.”

Pico Iyer (1957) British writer

“It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love

“Now, look, baby, 'Union' is spelled with 5 letters. It is not a four-letter word.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Baby

“And my life went to pieces, like a love letter in the rain.”

Will Christopher Baer Kiss Me, Judas

Source: Kiss Me, Judas

Love , Life

“But writing poems and letters doesn't seem to do much good.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

“If you look at the sky that way, it’s this massive shifting poem, or maybe a letter, first written by one author, and then, when the earth moves, annotated by another. So I stare and stare until, one day, I can read it.”

Maria Dahvana Headley (1977) American writer

Source: Magonia

Way , Reading

“How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Feeling , Personality

“What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call.”

Liz Carpenter (1920–2010) American writer

“There’s a big difference between death threats and love letters–even if the person writing the death threats still claims to actually love you. Of course, considering I once tried to kill someone I loved, maybe I had no right to judge.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Love , Death , Personality

“She wanted letters. Real letters written in his handwriting on actual paper that she could hold and keep and read whenever the mood struck her. They were proof, solid and tangible, that someone was thinking about her.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Mood , Thinking , Reading

“To my son,

If you are reading this letter, then I am dead.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Reading , Dead

“Thus they went on living in a reality that was slipping away, momentarily captured by words, but which would escape irremediably when they forgot the values of the written letters.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Reality

“This is the worst problem with living history museums. They always leave the best parts out. Like typhus. And opium. And scarlet letters. Shunning. Witch-burning.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

History , Problem , Parting

“You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.”

Stephen King Pet Sematary

Source: Pet Sematary

Home , Learning

“Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
Context: Write me at the Hotel Quintana, Pamplona, Spain. Or don't you like to write letters. I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something

Way , Feeling

“A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

“Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But it could blow everybody's head off.”

Mary Karr (1955) American writer

Source: Lit

“Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“Weren’t all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkdeath

Books , Way

“Hart caressed the letters of baby Graham’s name. “Mac likes to say, We’re Mackenzies. We break what we touch. But this little Mackenzie… he broke me.”

Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author

Source: The Duke's Perfect Wife

Baby

“Someday she might replace whatever of her had gone away by some prosthetic device, a dress of a certain color, a phrase in a letter, another lover.”

Thomas Pynchon book The Crying of Lot 49

Source: The Crying of Lot 49

Color , Lovers

“There were hundreds of them spread across the floor, each telling its own tale of triumph or sadness, each letter representing a phase in her life. She had kept them all.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Life , Sadness

“Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

¿Quién escribe tu nombre con letras de humo entre las estrellas del sur?
Ah déjame recordarte cómo eras entonces, cuando aún no existías.
"Every Day You Play" (Juegas Todos los Días), XIV, p. 35.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

Star

“The stems stood tall and straight, one series arranged in a single line, the other in a crudely shaped heart, the final one in the shape of the letter U. I love you.”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Don't Die, My Love

Love , Heart

“Against his will, Magnus found a smile curving his lips as he rummaged around for his big blue coffee cup that said BETTER THAN GANDALF across the front in sparkly letters. He was besotted; he was officially revolted by himself.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything

Smile , Coffee

“Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves the black letters marching across the white pages…”

Rebecca Wells book Little Altars Everywhere

Source: Little Altars Everywhere

Love , Books , Way , Feeling

“Because my spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh (1926), Chapter Six - Pooh.

“Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers… great talkers.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

Love , Memory

“It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Life

“MS. THOMPSON, it said in heavy block letters, PLEASE KEEP YOUR FELINE OFF MY PROPERTY. IF I SEE IT AGAIN, I WILL EAT IT.”

Patricia Briggs book Moon Called

Source: Moon Called

“Fanfiction isn't copying - it's a. One long party, from the first capital letter to the last full stop!”

Jasper Fforde book One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

Source: One of Our Thursdays Is Missing

“A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls;
For, thus friends absent speak.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Verse Letter to Sir Henry Woton, written before April 1598, line 1
Variant: More than kisses, letters mingle souls.

Soul , Kiss

“If I knew words enough, I could write the longest love letter in the world and never get tired”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Love , World

“This isn't a letter, it's a gift.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“The girl behind the scrawled letters. I loved you from the moment I read them. I love you still.” - Will Herondale”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love , Girl , Reading

“First, the candy and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order." -Jace Wayland”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Variant: It wouldn't be my move," Jace agreed. "First the candy and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order.
Source: City of Bones

Flowers