“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