– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated December 31, 1940, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“This book must be possessed rather than read, as a man does not read a woman but possesses her.”
– Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), Leningrad, dated October 9, 1948, referring to the Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin
“God bless you. It is very lonesome without You. I embrace you firmly and gently, as I love you.”
– Grand Duchess Tatyana Nikolaevna (1897—1918), from a letter to her father, Nikolay Alexandrovich (Nikolay II, the last Emperor of all Russia, 1868—1918), dated December 2, 1914
“I think of you as my wife, dear to me as you ever will be, and happy will be the home when you are given to my care and love.”
– Nathaniel Dawson (1829—1895), from a letter to Elodie Todd (1840—1877), Manassas Junction, dated August 1, 1861, in: “Practical Strangers. The Courtship Correspondence of Nathaniel Dawson and Elodie Todd, Sister of Mary Todd Lincoln”, edited by Stephen Berry and Angela Esco Elder
“… and as ever I am turning to you when there is something special on my mind that I cannot quite deal with by myself.”
– Gretel Adorno (1902—1993), from a letter to Walter Benjamin (1892—1940), Berlin, dated January 18, 1937, in: “Gretel Adorno and Walter Benjamin. Correspondence 1930—1940″, translated from the German by Wieland Hoban
“She is very beautiful but looks much worse when, on special occasions, she goes to the hairdresser and comes back vulgarly crimped for two or three days, until the set wears off.”
– Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from a letter to Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), Moscow, dated July 1,1932, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin
“Whether you wish or not, I have already taken you there inside, where I place everything what I treasure, before I look at it, seeing it already inside.”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Anatoly Shteiger, dated July 29, 1936, translated from the Russian by Natalija Arlauskaite, in: “Possession without a touch: letters of Marina Tsvetaeva”
“I was quiet and she could HEAR, she could understand what my silence meant.”
– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated November 30, 1949, in: “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena
“… my dear it is a long time now since I heard from you. There is no recent letter for me to set my foot upon as a stepping stone toward you.”
– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to Frank Thompson (1918—1889), dated July 29th, 1943, in: “Iris Murdoch, a Writer at War. Letters and Diaries, 1939—1945″
“I long so desperately for you, so that I would prefer to stay at home all the time like a hermit because nothing makes me happy at the moment and now I will be lucky if I get something from you this week. How long will this situation last?”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated July 18, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“Marina, my golden Friend, my marvelous, supernaturally fated destiny, my morning mist-on-the-rise soul, Marina.”
– Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from a letter to Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), dated June 14, 1924, in: “No Love Without Poetry. The Memoirs of Marina Tsvetaeva’s Daughter”, by Ariadna Efron, edited and translated from the Russian by Diane Nemec Ignashev
“There will never be a chair in your life empty of me.”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Abram Vishnyak (1895—1943), translated from the Russian by Natalija Arlauskaite, in: “Possession without a touch: letters of Marina Tsvetaeva”
“He is always in my heart. Ah, what one has truly loved, one can never leave.”
– Germaine de Staël (1766—1817), from a letter to Madame Juliette Recamier (1777—1849), Coppet, dated May 1, 1811, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper
“My wish for you is that you should remain at heart just as I remember you many years ago… I am sure that yours will be a bright life after all your trials.”
– Mikhail Bulgakov (1891—1940), from a letter to his brother Nikolay Bulgakov (1989—1966), Moscow, dated July 23, 1929, in: “Manuscripts don’t burn: Mikhail Bulgakov, a life in letters and diaries”, edited by J.A.R.Curtis
“When I have no letter, I feel you could be dead, and it is very sad. When I have a letter, I feel you are so living that I become very impatient; I want to see you. So, I have never peace, but why should I? Love is much better than peace.”
– Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986), from a letter to Nelson Algren (1909—1981), in: “A Transatlantic Love Affair. Letters to Nelson Algren” (https://archive.nytimes.com/)
“I am as weary as a ballerina after five acts and eight tableaux.”
– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to his sister, Maria Chekhova (1863—1957), Moscow, dated January 14, 1891, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer
“What do I want from you? What I want from all of poetry and from each line of a poem: the truth of this moment. That’s as far as truth goes. Never turns to wood – always to ashes.”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), St.-Gilles-sur-Vie, dated August 22, 1926, in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer maria Rilke”, translated by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, Jamey Gambrell
“So are you black like a little devil? And should I fear you? Oh no, little soul, I don’t fear you. It’s true you have arms which are strong, but you also have arms which are soft, which embrace. I’d long for the latter; then you’d be defenceless; and what would I do with you? I’d forget all the world – for you’d be the most beautiful world of all. I’d pour out the deepest dark around us – until only our eyes would shine like stars. I wouldn’t want to see anything, only my mouth would kiss your body, my mouth would seek that greatest happiness and would find it. You know, I imagine now that you’re my wife, not a little in that word, as I imagine it: one soul, one body! My dear beloved! – you’re mine and I live in you. It’s impossible to change anything in this. We have our world in which the sun doesn’t set.”
– 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
“I do not understand why you call sadness and unhappiness a weakness. Does strength consist in being unable to feel sad?”
– Karolina