Popular quotes about Letters! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 121
Another thing I like to say to my students is this: "How many Corinthians read Paul's letters?" The answer is none. They couldn't have cared less! There aren't even any Corinthians left, but Paul's letters persist. Paul was not a professional writer. He was called to something, and he sent his letters. That's a good way to look at it. That you might be making something that nobody cares about, but you have to do it. It's not that people should care, but that you should care.
Jamaica KincaidMany people believe letters the most personal and revealing form of communication. In them, we expect to find the charmer at his nap, slumped, open-mouthed, profoundly himself without thought for appearances. Yet, this is not quite true. Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose. In conversation, those uneasy eyes upon you, those lips ready with an emendation before you have begun to speak, are a powerful deterrent to unreality, even to hope.
Elizabeth Hardwick[Henry Miller] was such a scribomaniac that even when he lived in the same house as Lawrence Durrell they often exchanged letters. For most of his life, Henry wrote literally dozens of letters a day to people he could have easily engaged in conversation - and did. The writing process, in short, was essential. As it is to all real writers, writing was life and breath to him. He put out words as a tree puts out leaves.
Erica JongListen and learn: you need fourteen characters, minimum. Use random letters, not words. Hereโs a tip: think of a sentence, and use the first letter in each of those words. Mix it up between upper and lower case. Then pick two numbers that mean something to you โ not dates โ and stick them somewhere between the letters. Put a punctuation mark at the beginning of the password and then a symbol, like a dollar sign, at the end.
Julie JamesMiracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
C. S. LewisI think it's important to visit people in prison. And if you know anyone in prison, I would encourage you very much to visit them. They're a good audience! I always get good letters from prisoners. I don't usually answer them because I have a lot going on in my life, but I get some really good ones, I get some really good letters from prison.
John WatersI was always looking for the most dramatic emphasis. One example would be the letter writing, or the reading of the letters. If you remember from the book, they find the letters and then in the most undramatic way they take them downstairs, they get approval, they sit at a table during the day with their own author, across from each other.
Neil LaBute[A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters:] Dear Sir (or Madame): You may be right.
H. L. MenckenI receive about 10,000 letters a year from readers, and in the first year after a book is published, perhaps 5,000 letters will deal specifically with that piece of work.
Dean KoontzIt was also her nature that caused her letters to avoid emotional pitfalls and confine themselves to relating the events of her daily life in the utilitarian style of a ship's log. In reality they were distracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, while Florentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezThere is something intrinsically wrong about letters. For one thing they are not instantaneous. ... Nor is this the only trouble about letters. They do not arrive often enough. A letter which has been passionately awaited should be immediately supplemented by another one, to counteract the feeling of flatness that comes upon us when the agonizing delights of anticipation have been replaced by the colder flood of fulfilment.
Vita Sackville-West... letters freeze time for us, eternalizing shared experiences so we can go back and draw strength from them. Letters are like deposits in a secret bank that can be withdrawn when they are needed. And as we look back in love, we appreciate anew the thought and time that was taken to express those feelings.
Lois WyseAs the saying goes, type is a beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters.
Matthew CarterA natural hierarchy is simply an order of increasing wholeness, such as: particles to atoms to cells to organisms, or letters to words to sentences to paragraphs. The whole of one level becomes part of the whole of the next. In other words, natural hierarchies are composed of holons.
Ken WilberAs monarchs have a right to call in the specie of a state, and raise its value, by their own impression; so are there certain prerogative geniuses, who are above plagiaries, who cannot be said to steal, but, from their improvement of a thought, rather to borrow it, and repay the commonwealth of letters with interest again; and may wore properly be said to adopt, than to kidnap a sentiment, by leaving it heir to their own fame.
Laurence SterneDon Pedro - (...)'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' Benedick - The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vildly painted; and in such great letters as they writes, 'Here is good horse for hire', let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.
William ShakespeareNot only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful.
Joyce MaynardMaybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.
Nicole KraussThere are certain people whom one feels almost inclined to urge to hurry up and die so that their letters can be published.
Christopher MorleyWords had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards.
Rick RiordanBut it's far too late for us; ring, hair, letters, photographs - all traces of our love will be scattered then, like an anagram.
Daniel HandlerLove After Love The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
Derek WalcottMelt all the guns, I thought, break the knives, burn the guillotines-and the malicious will still write letters that kill.
Ray BradburyThe New York Times published a full-page hit piece with another claim from an individual who has been totally discredited based on the many many emails and letters she has sent to our office over the years looking for work. The New York Times refused to use the evidence that we presented. If they used it, if they would have looked, they would have said, there's no story here.
Donald TrumpI suffered most inconvenience from the difficulty of getting news from the civilised world down river, from the irregularity of receipt of letters, parcels of books and periodicals, and towards the latter part of my residence from ill health arising from bad and insufficient food.
Henry Walter BatesThe entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.
Herman MelvilleHow might letters be most efficiently copied so that the blind might read them with their fingers?
Georg C. LichtenbergEarly in my career I began receiving letters from a woman in the Midwest who claimed to be my mother.
Charley PrideThe neurotic lies awake at night, composing letters to those he hates. He seldom thinks of dropping a line to those he loves.
Mignon McLaughlinWhen other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.
Sylvia Townsend WarnerWhy should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass; I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.
Walt WhitmanHow do I let the director know how obsessed I am and willing to do anything for the movie? Like, I wanted to write this one director a letter, so I wrote him a handwritten note. But then I was like, 'How many people are writing this guy handwritten letters? Is it going to seem cheesy? What do I do?'
Jennifer Lawrence"On my honor" - what an ennobling phrase! Three short words, nine letters, but the summation of all we call character. From the Boy Scout's Oath.
Ezra Taft BensonOf all liars the most arrogant are biographers: those who would have us believe, having surveyed a few boxes full of letters, diaries, bank statements and photographs, that they can play at the recording angel and tell the whole truth about another human life.
A. N. WilsonNature has decreed that for what men suffer by having to shave, be killed in battle, and eat the legs of chickens, women make amends by housekeeping, childbirth, and writing all the letters for both of them.
Jan StrutherI am not ambitious to appear a man of letters: I could be content the world should think I had scarce looked upon any other book than that of nature.
Robert BoyleSince the beginning of the 21st century, thanks to the concerted efforts of both sides, China-U.S. relationship has on the whole enjoyed steady growth. Since President Obama took office, we have maintained close contact through exchange of visits, meetings, telephone conversations and letters.
Hu JintaoPredictions that unit cohesion could not survive honesty about sexual orientation were simply wrong. What does threaten morale arethe prolonged investigations, the questioning of friends and co-workers, the searches of barracks for magazines and letters, the witch hunts.
Anna QuindlenI like the simple 'I love your work' letters. You never get sick of people's appreciation. They think they're troubling you, but it's lovely people associate my songs with certain moments in their lives.
Michael BoltonSpread the glad tidings that it will not disappoint Miss Heyer's many admirers. Judging from the letters I've received from obviously feeble-minded persons who do so wish I would write another These Old Shades, it ought to sell like hot cakes. I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it's questionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu. Its period detail is good; my husband says it's witty---and without going to these lengths, I will say that it is very good fun.
Georgette HeyerIf you trace the history of Islamist terrorism, you see that its founders were great admirers of European fascism. They read the texts of European fascism, they quoted them in speeches and letters. This is not from the Koran - the Koran doesn't teach you how to repress people; there's nothing in there about women having to cover their faces, there's certainly nothing about suicide bombing.
Bernard-Henri LevyI even got letters form kids in hospitals saying the music is what keeps them going, and that really touched my heart.
Tom Cochrane