Popular quotes about Letters! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 30
[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 JongLetters 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 letters we can reform without practice, beg without humiliation, snip and shape embarrassing experiences to the measure of our own desires.
Elizabeth HardwickWhen you get arrested it's in big letters. When you get acquitted it's in small letters.
Charles BarkleyThe shapes of letters do not derive their beauty from any sensual or sentimental reminiscences. No one can say that the Oโs roundness appeals to us only because it is like that of an apple or of a girlโs breast or of the full moon. Letters are things, not pictures of things.
Eric GillThe Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilised people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular.
Edward GibbonThere is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.
Andrew CarnegieThat the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.
Jhumpa LahiriThere prevails among men of letters, an opinion, that all appearance of science is particularly hateful to Women; and that therefore whoever desires to be well received in female assemblies, must qualify himself by a total rejection of all that is serious, rational, or important; must consider argument or criticism as perpetually interdicted; and devote all his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to compliment.
Samuel JohnsonAfter two years of sending out query letters and failing to get an agent, I made friends with an author, who was nice enough to introduce me to his agent. That got my foot in the door.
Patrick RothfussThe audience. They see the name Mel Brooks, they want something really funny. They don't want to be moved; they don't want to be taught any lessons. [...] I get more letters for ๏ปฟTwelve Chairs ๏ปฟand ๏ปฟLife Stinks๏ปฟ than I get from any other movies, because people actually agree with the philosophy, or were moved, or they love the movie.
Mel BrooksIt may come as a surprise to many that there are ciphers (coded messages indicated by a letter or group of letters) in the Bible. Some are hidden; some, when revealed, are a key part of the narrative itself
Chuck MisslerThey are more like artistic names. Bรก is a nickname. It's short for Gรก. When I learned to spell letters and words, instead of calling him Gabriel [Ba], I called him Babio. People call him Gรก and I call him Bรก. So Bรก is a nickname.
Gabriel BaIt is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together.
Seneca the YoungerBut my father was also the one who told me I needed to clean up my mouth or I'd never find a man. What's very important to him is manners. Show up on time. Always send thank-you letters. He is one of the more thoughtful humans I've ever met. He's a great man and a very good dad.
Zosia MametHow might letters be most efficiently copied so that the blind might read them with their fingers?
Georg C. LichtenbergI got letters from people that have had peculiar psychic experiences, experiences with the dead - sometimes fairly tranquil experiences and sometimes very terrifying experiences. I do believe that a lot of them are sincere. I do believe, also, that some of them may be misguided. But, I think the majority of them have experienced something.
Stephen KingFor me the process works best with no interruptions, no breaks in the steady application, no letters to be answered, very little social life, no holidays; it is therefore a form of happy imprisonment.
Patrick O'BrianWhy 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 WhitmanFor ages past the Genius of Literature and the Genius of Art have walked together hand in hand. For the Goddess of letters is blind, and only she of Art can lend her sight.
Howard PyleIt was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life.
Haruki MurakamiImagination bound us stronger than love. Within its limitless borders we launched ships and love affairs, discovered lost worlds, made buildings and babies, found husbands, wrote letters and Broadway plays. We made ourselves up everyday.
Marita GoldenNow that Mr. Carter has made a book of his diary, an adoring memoir entitled Keeping Faith, the notes read like a collection of letters sent from scout camp.
Lewis H. LaphamPredictions 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 QuindlenAs a teenager I wrote to R.A. Lafferty. And he responded, too, with letters that were like R.A. Lafferty short stories, filled with elliptical answers to straight questions and simple answers to complicated ones.
Neil GaimanA professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy; he will be silent on his more personal interests, or, if he must speak, will veil them under conventional forms.
Walter RaleighI get a lot of letters. Not only from children but from adults, too. Almost every week, every month, clippings come in from some part of the world where ducks are crossing the street.
Robert McCloskeyWhat I didn't say was that each time I picked up a German dictionary or a German book, the very sight of those dense, black, barbed-wire letters made my mind shut like a clam.
Sylvia PlathThe age of technology has both revived the use of writing and provided ever more reasons for its spiritual solace. Emails are letters, after all, more lasting than phone calls, even if many of them r 2 cursory 4 u.
Anna QuindlenIf a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.
Edwidge DanticatI get letters every week from people who live in rural Texas or rural Mississippi and who feel totally alone. They feel like they must be the strangest person in the world. They don't fit in to the religious milieu of their communities. It doesn't make any sense to them. They read some of my columns and they know that there's somebody in the world at least as crazy as they are, and so they write and say is there anybody else?
John Shelby SpongOratory is good only if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety of style, and originality of treatment, while in the case of letters there is no such need whatsoever.
IsocratesIt is obvious that Paul did not regard prayer as supplemental, but as fundamental-not something to be added to his work but the very matrix out of which his work was born. He was a man of action because he was a man of prayer. It was probably his prayer even more than his preaching that produced the kind of leaders we meet in his letters.
J. Oswald SandersOne of my great regrets, and I don't have many, is that I spent too long putting people's status and reputation ahead of their more important qualities. I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone's name is no guarantee of compassion, kindness, humour, all the far more relevant stuff.
Bill NighyThe Bible is the truest utterance that ever came by alphabetic letters from the soul of man, through which, as through a window divinely opened, all men can look into the stillness of eternity, and discern in glimpses their far-distant, long-forgotten home.
Thomas CarlyleI don't see social media as lending my voice as much as I see it speaking my truth. If you look at my open letters, the one I wrote about Blue Ivy too - you see, I am always as the foundation, talking about us being a better humanity. I believe in that.
India.ArieReal writers-that is, capital W Writers-rarely make much money. Their biggest reward is the occasional reader's response.... Commentators-in-print voicing big fat opinions-you might call us small w writers-get considerably more feedback than Writers. The letters I personally find most flattering are not the very rare ones that speak well of my editorials, but the occasional reader who wants to know who writes them. I always happily assume the letter-writers is implying that the editorials are so good that I couldn't have written them myself.
Malcolm ForbesI live alone, perhaps for no good reason, for the reason that I am an impossible creature, set apart by a temperament I have never learned to use as it could be used, thrown off by a word, a glance, a rainy day, or one drink too many. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there. I go up to Heaven and down to Hell in an hour, and keep alive only by imposing upon myself inexorable routines. I write too many letters and too few poems.
May SartonI get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun
Caroline B. CooneyIntroducing 'Lite': the new way to spell 'Light'; but with twenty per cent fewer letters.
Jerry SeinfeldLetters form a by-path of literature, a charming, but occasional, retreat for people of cultivated leisure.
Agnes RepplierMy readers at that time were still men of letters; but there had to be other people waiting to read my poems.
Salvatore QuasimodoCourtroom for Ted Bundy's trial is packed with women, trying to meet him and give him love letters and wedding-fucking-proposals...and the first thought that enters my mind is, "And I'm not getting laid." What am I doing wrong?
Bill Hicks