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“No matter how much I write I still can’t express to you, even remotely, how much I love you nor how anxious I am to be with you. You will just have to deduce it from the fact that I spend at least two hours a day writing. Quantity is not as good as quality – but I hope it is worth a little bit. If the length of my letters does as much as hint to you the love and desire that prompts it, then they have been well worth the effort. I love you.”
– Captain Hunnicutt, from a letter to Virginia Dickerson, dated July 3, 1944, in: “Dearest Virginia. Love Letters from a Cavalry Officer in the South Pacific”, edited by Gayle Hunnicutt
“And why do you fear me? Would I ever do anything to you? I’d surely never do anything bad. And what would I do to you? I know, I know! I long for it unutterably! Is that why you’re frightened?”
– 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
“You write with your heart’s blood, I with ink”
– Henry Miller (1891—1980), from a letter to Brenda Venus (born 1947), dated August 1, 1978, in: “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus”
“You know you are an awful lot to me – I have to laugh when I say it – It sounds so funny to say it – As if you didn’t know – And still something makes me say it in such a raw way this morning”
– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), New York City, dated January 15, 1918, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“… and don’t think negative thoughts about me. I’m begging you”
– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated November 8, 1949, in: “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena
“I long for you more than for the sun; in fact I’d like a cloud in which we’d see only one another and not the others.”
– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated May 5, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček, translated by John Tyrrell
“Listen, tell me: should we not live together anymore?
Be brave. Write immediately.
I can’t stay here much longer.
Listen to your heart.
Now, tell me if I should come join you.
My life is yours.”
– Arthur Rimbaud (1854—1891), from a letter to his Paul Verlaine (1844—1896), dated July 4, 1873, in: “I Promise to be Good. The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud”, translated from the French by Watt Mason
“I wish you were in front of me – would hold me close just a minute before I go on to the things I must do – ”
– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Canyon, Texas, dated July 2, 1917, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“… now and again, when I re-read my letters, I am a little embarrassed because they talk of almost nothing of substance and I wonder what this serious man will think of me, the whole letter being such a lot of nonsense. Then I shake my head and laugh at myself.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated Saturday, December 14, 1940, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“I am like a fly without a head; I don’t know where to turn, nor what to do; hours go by, while I’m sitting here at the desk, thinking of so many things… if anybody, in hiding, were here spying on me, he’d think I was doped.”
– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated February 28, 1930, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani
“And good-night, dear friend of my heart… Why aren’t you here? It is horrid not to live next door to those one loves.
– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated 1867, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“Do you know what I want – when I want? Darkness, light, transfiguration. The most remote headland of another’s soul – and my own. Words that one will never hear or speak. The improbable. The miraculous. A miracle.
You will get (for in the end you will surely get me) a strange, sad, dreaming, singing little monster struggling to escape from your hand.”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke”, translated from the Russian by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, and Jamey Gambrell
“Sometimes I could just undress you and lick you from head to toe. In my sleep I run my hands over the curves in your physique – what a thrill! Like being proficient in runs on the piano.”
– Henry Miller (1891—1980), from a letter to Brenda Venus (born 1947), dated October 7, 1976, in: “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus”
“I write you, me beloved one, very often, and you write very little. You are wicked and naughty, very naughty, as much as you are fickle.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte (1769—1821), from a letter to Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763—1814), Verona, dated July 17, 1796 (pbs.org)
“I’m just blessed that I’ve confessed my love to you, that I’ve experienced confessing love to someone. This never happened before… And in life that mutual feeling has to fight its way through! Believe me, there’d be no need for life if it couldn’t bubble over with that intoxication. It’s the height of existence; it’s like a flower which waits for the bee to bring the pollen.
The flower must surely grieve when it finishes flowering in the cold, in the frost.”
– 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
“If I only could make you realise how very badly I miss you and how empty everything is for me without you. At times you feel that the difficulties of our movements and our existence weigh on me, and at times I do not do things easily or gracefully. But when you are not there I realise how much I love doing things for you and how nothing is really the matter as long as we share things.”
– Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942), from a letter to Elsie Rosaline Masson (1890—1935), dated Monday October 3, 1933, in: “The Story of a Marriage. The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson”
“I only wished to send you one more kiss before I went to sleep, to tell you that I love you… So, a kiss, a quick one, you know what kind, and one more, and oh again still more, and still more under your chin, in that spot I love on your very soft skin, and on your chest, where I place my heart.”
– 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
“When I am alone and have had no news from you for quite a while, then I get despondent.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated December 24, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“ – Maybe it’s stupid to be in love. – To have a heart. All weakness. All meaningless. To live & be – without thought of other – maybe that’s the way.”
– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 5, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“I’ll send you, one of these days, a bunch of poems I composed during these lost evenings. They are written for you alone and not for other readers – not because there is anything bad, but because they are only for you.”
– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated April 8, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani
“This paper feels too little for me but I’m going to try to write to you anyway – I guess we often do things in spite of difficulties —.”
– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1886), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Charlottesville, Virginia, dated August 6, 1916, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“What do I get out of it when they’re always telling me that I appear young? They should rather ask for whom my heart aches and give me a cure. I’d drink it by the spoonful not only three times daily but all the time. You don’t understand this, and that’s good.”
– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated July 4, 1924, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell
“My love,
I’m writing this in bed. Yesterday, I couldn’t have managed it but just slept, with gargling as my sole distraction. I had a very sore throat and even some temperature… If I weren’t so uncomfortably positioned for writing, I’d spend pages telling you how happy I am and how much I love you. But I take comfort from the fact that you felt it clearly yourself, didn’t you, little man? Here are a hundred kisses, each carrying the same message.”
– Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986), from a letter to Jean-Paul Sartre (1905—1980), dated January 6, 1930, in: “Letters to Sartre”, translated from the French by Quintin Hoare
“That is all, my dear old friend, it is not my fault, I embrace you with all my heart. For the moment that is the only thing that is functioning. My brain is too stupefied.”
– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), dated March 17, 1872, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“Do you think poetry was ever generally understood – or can be? Is the business of it to tell people what they know already, as they know it, and so precisely that they shall be able to cry out – “here you should supply this – that, you eventually pass over, and I will help you from my own stock?” It is all teaching, on the contrary, and the people hate to be taught…
A poet’s affair is with God, to whom he is accountable, and to whom is his reward: look elsewhere and you find misery enough.”
– Robert Browning (1812—1889), from a letter to John Ruskin (1819—1900), Paris, dated December 10, 1855, in: “The Life and Work of John Ruskin” by William Gershom Collingwood
“… do write, in the name of all that is holy, or I shall be lonesome. It’s as if I were in jail and my spirits are very low.”
– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to his future wife, Olga Knipper (1868—1959), Yalta, dated October 30, 1899, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer
“Your photo, lit up by the midday sun, is smiling at me. I take your head in my hands and kiss you with deepest love and say farewell, keep well, stay confident, as I am.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated November 3, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“We must have someone who is kind above all, and perfectly honest.”
– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to George Sand (1804—1876), dated March, 1872, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“This is how it is with me: I write exactly as if I were talking to you, without thinking about what I want to write, a letter like that is meant to replace a conversation or a cosy little chat.”
– 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.”
