Quotes from my Blog. Letters

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated March 22, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“I certainly don’t feel any inhibition about asking for your heart. I ask for it shamelessly and need it…”

– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to Brigid Brophy (1929—1995), dated 1963, in: “Living on Paper: Letters of Iris Murdoch, 1934—1995”

“I have become anxious and fearful, I keep expecting disasters and I have become superstitious.”

– Mikhail Bulgakov (1891—1940), from a letter to Vikenty Veresayev (1867—1945), Moscow, dated July 22—28, 1931, in: “Manuscripts don’t burn: Mikhail Bulgakov, a life in letters and diaries”, edited by J.A.R.Curtis

“Be – yes, we can and are allowed to do so. To be – be there for another. Even if it is only a few words, alla breve, one letter once a month: the heart will know how to live.”

– Paul Celan (1920—1970), from a letter to Ingeborg Bachmann (1926—1973), dated October 31-November 1, 1957, in: “Correspondence: Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan”, translated from the German by Wieland Hoban

“I do not want you to forget me entirely. I often think of you, but with a feeling of pain. It seems you loved me enough to have the courage to love me more. I had, it seems to me, so many ties to you, that you should forgive me some of the faults which might cause your impression of me to be impaired… but it is my fate to love more than I am loved. In all feelings except the feeling of love, my heart has given more than it has received. Oh well, one must again do without you. I derive some pride from this disposition of my soul, but no pain. (…). I still need a few years to suppress my heart entirely.”

– Germaine de Staël (1766 -1817), from a letter to Madame de Pastoret, Coppet? September 10, 1800, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper

“I’ve loved everything, I knew how to love everything except the other, the other who was alive. The other has always bothered me; it was a wall against which I broke, I didn’t know how to live with the living. Hence my feeling that I was not a woman but a soul. […] You simply have loved me… I told you: there is a Soul. You said: there is a Life.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Konstantin Rodzevich (1895—1988), in: “Marina Tsvetaeva: The Double Beat of Heaven and Hell” by Lily Feiler

“From your silken hair to your delicate feet you are perfection to me.”

– Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), from a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas (1870—1945), Courtfield Gardens, Kensington, dated May 20, 1895, in: “Oscar Wilde: A Life In Letters” by Merlin Holland

“I have only you in this world. I only have you, and I love only you.”

– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated April 6, 1949, in: “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena

“You know not what it is to bear thro’ weary years a shattered heart with its vacant chambers, its extinguished fires, – its dethroned image, – its broken shrine: with its silent hopelessness, – its terrible struggles, – its anguished longings: with its sad memories, – its humiliating present, and without a future. You know not what it is to live, with the spring of life broken; to live on and on amid the scattered debris of all that you valued in life; to have existence, but to spend it “among the tombs” of every thing that made it a blessing. You know not what it is to have your pure name spoken by polluted lips; to have your high and cherished honor assailed by mouths whose very breath was infamy; – and to have your grief, that sacred thing, – so deep as to be powerless even to throb out an appeal for mercy, denied the last poor privilege of decent privacy.”

– Sally Campbell Preston McDowell (1821—1895), from a letter to John Miller (1819—1895), Colalto, dated October 13, 1854, in: “If You Love That Lady Don’t Marry Her: The Courtship Letters of Sally Mcdowell and John Miller, 1854—1856″

“I feel that without you, although I try very hard to resist, I am dying. I am dying because I no longer know what to do with my life; in this horrible loneliness there is no more sense for me in living – neither value nor purpose. The meaning, the value, the purpose of my life all were you – in hearing the sound of your voice close to me, in seeing the heaven of your eyes and the light of your glance – the light that was brightening my spirit. Now everything is dead and extinguished, inside me and around me. This is the terrible truth. There is no point in my making it known to you; but it is so.”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated March 20, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“I have always translated the body into the soul (dis-bodied it!), have so gloried ‘physical’ love – in order to be able to like it – that suddenly nothing was left of it. Engrossing myself in it, hollowed it out. Penetrating into it, ousted it. Nothing remained of it but myself: Soul”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), dated August 2, 1926, in: “The Same Solitude”, translated from the Russian by Catherine Ciepiela

“I gather you don’t want to see me briefly. I feel depressed about this, and about the way we can’t manage, because you are important to me and might one day help me a lot. I can’t spare you, although you say I’m not exactly active. This is gloomy stuff, I’m afraid – your letter made me feel sad and ineffectual, desiring yet not finding in myself a strong full-blooded response of some sort to your fierceness.

I’ll write again before long if encouraged to, and even probably if not encouraged to. My love…”

– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to Brigid Brophy (1929—1995), dated March 18, 1960, in: “Living on Paper: Letters of Iris Murdoch, 1934—1995”

“Silence is painful; but in silence things take form, and we must wait and watch. In us, in our secret depth, lies the knowing element which sees and hears that which we do not see nor hear. All our perceptions, all the things we have done, all that we are Today, dwelt once in that knowing, silent depth, that treasure chamber in the soul.”

– Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), from a letter to Mary Elizabeth Haskell (1873—1964), dated March 1, 1916, in: “Beloved prophet; the love letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell and her private journal”

“My letters chase after you, but you are elusive.”

– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to Alexey Suvorin (1834—1912), Melikhovo, dated August 1, 1892, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer

“When separated from you, it seems time has lost its wings and yet the heart has somehow found a means of breaking the length of this bitter separation.”

– Monti, from a letter to Germaine de Staël (1766—1817), Berlin, dated April 9, 1804, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper

“Listen to me; I love you tenderly, I think of you every day and on every occasion: when working I think of you. I have gained certain intellectual benefits which you deserve more than I do, and of which you ought to make a longer use. Consider too, that my spirit is often near to yours, and that it wishes you a long life and a fertile inspiration in true joys.”

– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to George Sand (1804—1876), Nohant, dated December 8, 1872, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“Happiness, sweet friend, is a solemn thing. And joy is closer to tears than laughter…”

– Marcel Proust (1871—1922), quoting Victor Hugo in a letter to Madame Straus, dated November 11, 1918 (http://www.yorktaylors.free-online.co.uk/)

“… my heart is so constituted that everything it loves and treasures grows deeply rooted in it, and when uptorn, causes wounds and suffering.”

– Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821—1881), from a letter to Maria Dmitryevna Issayeva, dated June 4, 1855, in: “Fyodor Dostoevsky: Memoirs, Letters and Autobiographical Novels”, translated from the Russian by Ethel Colburn Mayne, John Middleton Murry, and S.S. Koteliansky

“St. Ambrose says: ‘It is easier to find men who have kept their innocence than those who have done penance for their sins.’”

– 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

“I reckon that the best thing would be if, when you have read them [notes], you threw them into the fire. The stove long ago became my favourite editor. I like it for the fact that, without rejecting anything, it is equally willing to swallow laundry bills, the beginnings of letters and even, shame, oh shame, verses!”

– Mikhail Bulgakov (1891—1940), from a letter to his friend Pavel Popov, Moscow, dated April 24, 1932, in “Manuscripts don’t burn: Mikhail Bulgakov, a life in letters and diaries”, edited by J.A.R.Curtis

“I cannot say much about that which fills my heart and soul. I feel like a seeded field in midwinter, and I know that spring is coming. My brooks will run and the little life that sleeps in me will rise to the surface when called.”

– Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), from a letter to Mary Elizabeth Haskell (1873—1964), dated March 1, 1916, in: “Beloved prophet; the love letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell and her private journal”

“I love you with all my might – you’ve been so nice, so warm, I have such trust in you, my heart, my dear heart. I hold you tight, as I do in the morning. Near or far, I’m all yours.”

– Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986), from a letter to Jean-Paul Sartre (1905—1980), dated January 25, 1947, in: “Letters to Sartre”, translated from the French by Quintin Hoare

“The more the days go by, the more my anguish and despair grow; and I don’t know what will happen to me tomorrow ….”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated March 20, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“My Dear dearest Boy, I want so much to write to you, but it seems I don’t know much to say.”

– Carrie Hughes (1873—1938), from a letter to Langston Hughes (1902—1967), dated March 8, 1935, in: “My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes’s Letters to Langston Hughes, 1926—1938”

“… nothing is knowable together (everything – forgotten together), neither honor, nor God, nor a tree. Only your body which is closed to you (you have no entrance). Think about it: the strangeness: an entire area of the soul, which I (you) cannot enter alone. I CANNOT ENTER ALONE. And it’s not God who is needed, but a human being. Becoming through another person.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), dated August 2, 1926, in: “The Same Solitude”, by Catherine Ciepiela

“This is just to tell you good night – very tenderly – and to tell you how I am always

telling you all the things I do as I do them – I wish I could hold you warm and close—

Good Night

A kiss – very quiet – ”

– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), York Beach, Maine, dated May 27, 1928, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“let us love one another, my God! my God! Let us love one another or we are lost.”

– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated September 14, 1871, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“The weather here is very cold and sleety today. This has been a very long winter it seems. I had a letter writing fit tonight and did not want to leave you out.”

– Carrie Hughes (1873—1938), from a letter to Langston Hughes (1902—1967), dated March 8, 1935, in: “My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes’s Letters to Langston Hughes, 1926—1938”

“my only wish is that you are all well and in good spirits, and send me a few kind words from time to time.”

– Etty Hillesum (1914—1943), from a letter to Jopie, Klaas, from a Westerbork transit camp for Jews, dated July 3, 1943, in: “An Interrupted Life: Diaries and Letters 1941—43. And Letters from Westerbork″, translated from the Dutch by Arnold J. Pomerans

“I have been living in one of Dostoevsky’s novels, you see, not in one of Jane Austen’s.”

– T.S. Eliot (1888—1965), from a letter to Eleonor Hinkley, dated July 23, 1917, in: “The Letters o T.S. Eliot. Volume 1: 1898—1922”, edited by Hugh Haughton and Valeri Eliot

“She wrote to me!.. I do not see her at my side; I do not hear her speaking; but she has written to me, she has thought of me ….”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated March 22, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“When I looked for the person who had passed away, he gathered inside of me in peculiar and such surprising ways, and it was deeply moving to feel that he now existed only there.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), from a letter to Countess Margot Sizzo-Noris-Crouy,, dated January 6, 1923, in: “The Dark Interval. Rainer Maria Rilke. Letters on Loss, Grief and Transformation”, translated by Ulrich Baer

“There are many days when you don’t write. What do you do, then? No, my darling, I am not jealous, but sometimes worried. Come soon; I warn you, if you delay, you will find me ill. Fatigue and your absence are too much.

Your letters are the joy of my days, and my days of happiness are not many.”

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

“In your letter this morning you say something which gives me courage. I must remember it. You write that it is my duty to you and to myself to live in spite of everything. I think that is true. I shall try and I shall do it.”

– Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), from a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas (1870—1945), HM Prison, Hollowa, dated Monday, Evening, April 29, 1895, in: “Oscar Wilde: A Life In Letters” by Merlin Holland

“I fell asleep & dreamt you had come & we were in the bathroom together – both naked – You turned around stooped down & with your hands pulled Fluffy open – I had a terrific erection – Fluffy looked like the big Black Iris which next to the Blue Lines is closest to my heart – & as I took hold of you – & rammed my Little Man into you, you said with sighs – sighs so deep so heartbreaking – you must leave him no matter what happens. And I saw Fluffy – I saw him wet & shiny ramming into Fluffy & felt like God must feel. – And you were beside yourself & your

smooth behind seemed to grow a bit larger – & it moved – & you pushed – & you seemed to wish to suck in – & I rammed & rammed & you seemed to want to hold him – & yelled: Don’t take him out – I’ll hear that voice to my dying day – the agony of it – & I moaned, No, no, it dare not be – I & mine are accursed – And I drew him out. Wet, erect – panting – You crying. I half mad. – I awoke. No wet dream. – Even that I seemed to control. – Thank all that is that I had this dream. – I have had no dreams in ages – any kind. Not awake. Not asleep. – And life without my dreaming is terrible.”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 6, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933

“What wisdom is to the philosopher, what God is to his saint, you are to me.”

– Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), from a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas (1870—1945), Courtfield Gardens, Kensington, dated, May 20, 1895, in: “Oscar Wilde: A Life In Letters” by Merlin Holland

“They all kept my poetry. They all gave me back my soul. (gave me back to my 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” from “Florentine nights. Nine Letters With a Tenth Kept Back and an Eleventh Received”, in: “Readings: The Poetics of Blanchot, Joyce, Kafka, Kleist, Lispector, and Tsvetayeva” by H. Cixous, translated from the French by Verena A. Conley

“… you have no need to be loved, and I love you; that is again a proof of what I have always observed, that one easily obtains what one very little desires.”

– Germaine de Staël (1766—1817), from a letter to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832), Berlin, dated April 9, 1804, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper

“Sweetest – Sweetheart. I’m quiet but [my] heart is breaking because somehow I feel I can’t let you see into that heart as I want you to see it. – I know it is worth it. I know it will add to your strength. And as the consciousness of you – what you are – adds to mine altho’ it may eventually kill me…”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 6, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“… you see you don’t know what my love is, you see I’m right to regret loving you so much, since this love is useless and tiresome to you. Oh, I love you, that’s certainly true! I love you despite you, despite myself, despite the entire world, despite God, despite the Devil, who also has a hand in this. I love you, I love you, I love you! Whether I’m happy or unhappy, gay or sad, I love you. I love you, do with me what you will.”

– Juliette Drouet (1806—1883), from a letter to Victor Hugo (1802—1885), dated February, 1933, in: “My beloved Toto: letters from Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo, 1833—1882″, translated from the French by Victoria Tietze Larson

“I lose myself in the recollections of my childhood like an old man… I do not expect anything further in life than a succession of sheets of paper to besmear with black. It seems to me that I am crossing an endless solitude to go I don’t know where. And it is I who am at the same time the desert, the traveller, and the camel.”

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

“I can’t explain myself. Everything about me is mysterious to me and I do not make any very strong effort to solve the puzzle.”

– E. B. White (1899—1985), from a letter to Arthur Hudson, New York, dated April, 1, 1955, in: “Letters of E.B. White”, edited by Lobrano Guth and Martha White

“I love you so and I do want to see you. I wish I could live with you or where you are and I’d never worry again.”

– Carrie Hughes (1873—1938), from a letter to Langston Hughes (1902—1967), dated March 8, 1935, in: “My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes’s Letters to Langston Hughes, 1926—1938”

“The only words with any meaning are these: come back. I want to be with you, I love you. If you hear this, you will prove yourself courageous and sincere.

Otherwise, I pity you.

But I love you, embrace you, and know we’ll see each other again.”

– Arthur Rimbaud (1854—1891), from a letter to Paul Verlaine (1844—1896), dated July 5, 1873, in: “I Promise to be Good. The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud”, translated from the French by Watt Mason

“now I am here alone: without you, without life ….”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated March 15, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“Truth is, so great, that I wouldn’t like to speak, or sleep, or listen, or love. To feel myself trapped, with no fear of blood, outside time and magic, within your own fear, and your great anguish, and within the very beating of your heart. All this madness, if I asked it of you, I know, in your silence, there would be only confusion. I ask you for violence, in the nonsense, and you, you give me grace, your light and your warmth. I’d like to paint you, but there are no colors, because there are so many, in my confusion, the tangible form of my great love.”

– Frida Kahlo (1907—1954), from a letter to Diego Rivera (1886—1957), in: “The Diary Of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait”

“How stupid it is that that heart of mine has virtually turned me into a prisoner. Some

day I’ll ignore it – & I’ll do anything I feel I must do – heart or no heart. Rather death than

living as I live.”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated June 25, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“… believe me, all you are suffering – your tiredness, your aches, all the pains that seem to be coming from the body but are not, pains of which no physician will ever find the cause-have on the contrary their root in this: that they are Life, all the Life that is in you, all the possibilities of being that are in you and live in you, without your even realizing it. They wear you out, distress you, depress you, exasperate you, continuously and vehemently taking your spirit by storm, or trying to forcibly remove the blocks of your conscience – perhaps too narrow and bourgeois – inside which you keep yourself bottled up.”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated July 13, 1928, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“At every moment of my life, God knows, I have always feared offending you, not God. I have tried to please you, rather than him.”

– 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

“Darling, you’re failure to reply to my letter has reduced me to a state of ridiculous panic. This simply mustn’t be. Please write at once, even if it’s only to tell me I’m impossible. I’m always rather impetuous & foolish on paper. And off it too. You must be patient with me. I care for you rather a lot.”

– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to David Hicks (1929—1998), Brussels, dated November 6, 1945, in: “Iris Murdoch, a Writer At War. Letters and Diaries, 1939—1945″

“… to a writer, a child is an alibi. If I should never in all my years write anything worth reading, I can always explain that by pointing to my child.”

– E. B. White (1899—1985), from a letter to Gustave s. Lobrano, New York, dated December, 1930, in: “Letters of E.B. White”, edited by Lobrano Guth and Martha White

“I don’t love you anymore; on the contrary, I detest you. You are a vile, mean, beastly slut. You don’t write to me at all; you don’t love your husband; you know how happy your letters make him, and you don’t write him six lines of nonsense…”

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

“I wish, my love, that your love were less sure of me, so that you would be more anxious. But the more reason I have given you for confidence in the past, the more you neglect me now.”

– 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

“You leave me without news of you? You say that you prefer to be forgotten, rather than to complain ceaselessly, as it is very useless and since you will not be forgotten; complain then…”

– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated May 7, 1875, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“I love you all the more because you are growing more unhappy. How you torment yourself, and how you disturb yourself about life! for all of which you complain, is life; it has never been better for anyone or in any time. One feels it more or less, one understands it more or less, one suffers with it more or less, and the more one is in advance of the age one lives in, the more one suffers. We pass like shadows on a background of clouds which the sun seldom pierces, and we cry ceaselessly for the sun which can do no more for us. It is for us to clear away our clouds.”

– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated December 8, 1874, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“Do go on doing a lot of walking & keep up your love of nature, for that is the right way to understand art better & better. Painters understand nature & love her & teach us to see.”

– Vincent Van Gogh (1853—1890), from a letter to his brother, Theo Van Gogh (1857—1891), London, dated January, 1874, in: “The Letters Of Vincent Van Gogh”, translated from the French and Dutch by Arnold Pomerans

“I need to be alone. I am tired of grandeur; all my feelings have dried up. I no longer care about my glory. At twenty-nine I have exhausted everything.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte (1769—1821), from a letter to his brother, Joseph Bonaparte (1768—1844) (pbs.org)

“I love you … —

Don’t you know it – Should I be silent? —

I haven’t reread this letter – it may be hard to make out – Don’t waste time over it.

– If you [have] written don’t throw away the letters. Send what you write. I’d tear this up. —

I know it must sound broken – & not beautiful – not flowing – not as I should like it to be. —

But I’m not flowing – not beautiful these days. I am broken – & I don’t like myself at all. But

I’m trying hard to find my line again. You’ll help me. I must believe you will. —

Won’t you?”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 6, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“All the week I have been thinking intensely of you and what you have done for me. And I have written you several letters that I have not sent because none of them were true enough. There were too many words in them, I guess. But all of them contained in some form or other these simple statements:

I love you.

I need you very much.

I cannot bear to hurt you.

Those are the only meaning in all that I say here. You have been kinder to me than any other person in the world. I could not help but love you. You have made me dream greater dreams than I have ever dreamed before. And without you it will not be possible to carry out those dreams. But I cannot stand to disappoint you either. The memory of your face when I went away on Monday is more than I am able to bear. I must have been terribly stupid to have hurt you so, terribly lacking in understanding, terribly blind to what you have wanted me to see. You must not let me hurt you again. I know well that I am dull and slow, but I do not want to remain that way. I don’t know what to say except that I am sorry that I have not changed rapidly enough into what you would have me be. The other unsent letters contained more words than this one. They were much longer. They were much more emotionally revealing, perhaps. But I do not know how to write what I want to say any simpler than it is said here. Words only confuse, and I must not offer excuses for the things in which I have failed. Your face was so puzzled and so weary that day. I shall never forget it. You have been my friend… and I did not want to disappoint you. If I can do no better than I have done, then for your own sake, you must let me go. You must be free, too… At first we had wings. If there are no wings now for me, you must be free! We can still fly ahead always like the bright dream that is truth, and goodness. Free!”

– Langston Hughes (1902—1967), from a surviving draft of a letter to Charlotte Mason, dated February 23, 1929, in: “The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902—1941, I, Too, Sing, America”, by Arnold Rampersad

“I quiver in every nerve with pain. I am wrecked with the recurring tides of hysteria. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Why? Because on every side there comes in nothing but the tidings of evil, of indifference, of pretence.”

– Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), from a letter to More Adey, Reading Prison, dated May 12, 1897, in: “Oscar Wilde: A Life In Letters” by Merlin Holland

“Soon, I hope, I will be holding you in my arms; then I will cover you with a million hot kisses, burning like the equator.”

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

“Let me kiss you on the mouth – let me kiss your neck – behind the eyes – let me kiss each eye – & mouth again. Let me kiss the abdomen – each breast – each side of your sweetest of all behinds… & lie there – And then let [me] hold you firmly & let happen what will. I think were you here now I’d even risk all – just without anything. Madness I know – But I am mad with You penetrating every fiber of me – every pulse

beat is you – And you ought to know it. And you don’t – And you don’t believe it now – That’s what I have forfeited. —

That’s the cross I bear – which robs me of all initiative. – Has killed the dream.”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 6, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“There is so much that moves me today that I don’t know how I’ll ever end this letter. And I long for you so terribly!”

– Eberhard Arnold (1883—1935), from a letter to Emmy von Hollander (1884—1980), Breslau, dated April 28, 1907, in: “Love letters. Eberhard Arnold and Emmy von Hollander”