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