Popular quotes about Letters! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 32
It's interesting to me that really one of the first things she [Eleanor Roosevelt]did as First Lady was to collect her father's letters and publish a book called The Letters of My Father, essentially, hunting big game, The Letters of Elliott Roosevelt. And it really was an act of redemption, really one of her first acts of redemption as she entered the White House. She was going to redeem her father's honor. And publishing his letters, reconnecting with her childhood really fortified her to go on into the difficult White House years.
Blanche Wiesen CookAnother 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 Kincaid[Mary Wortley Montagu] wrote more letters, with fewer punctuation marks, than any Englishwoman of her day; and her nephew, the fourth Baron Rokeby, nearly blinded himself in deciphering the two volumes of undated correspondence which were printed in 1810. Two more followed in 1813, after which the gallant Baron either died at his post or was smitten with despair; for sixty-eight cases of letters lay undisturbed ... 'Les morts n'écrivent point,' said Madame de Maintenon hopefully; but of what benefit is this inactivity, when we still continue to receive their letters?
Agnes RepplierA Mantra is composed of certain letters arranged in definite sequence of sounds, of which the letters are the representative signs. To produce the designed effect, Mantra must be intoned in the proper way, according to rhythm and sound...a Mantra is a potent compelling force, a word of power.
Sir John WoodroffeNever forget that you must die; that death will come sooner than you expect... God has written the letters of death upon your hands. In the inside of your hands you will see the letters M.M. It means 'Memento Mori' - remember you must die.
John FurnissWhen we were children, letters were like fun toys. We played with them through our building blocks. We colored them in books. We danced and sang along with TV puppets while learning C was for โcookie.โ Soon, letters turned into words. Words turned into sentences. Sentences turned into thoughts. And along the way, we stopped playing with them and stopped marveling at A through Z.
Ji LeeThe difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to the success of business today.
Jay BaerI 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 KoontzGenerally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.
Haruki MurakamiThat rewriting of literary history is most obvious in the case of The Yage Letters, where I was able to show that the true history inverts the official one.
Oliver HarrisDoth not all nature around me praise God? If I were silent, I should be an exception to the universe. Doth not the thunder praise Him as it rolls like drums in the march of the God of armies? Do not the mountains praise Him when the woods upon their summits wave in adoration? Doth not the lightning write His name in letters of fire? Hath not the whole earth a voice? And shall I, can I, silent be?
Charles SpurgeonZen is a special transmission outside the scriptures,With no reliance on words and letters.A direct pointing to the human mind,And the realization of enlightenment.
John Daido LooriMy mother used to do all the things that were important to her after midnight. ... Sometimes I'd sneak downstairs and see her knitting, or reading, or writing letters. I'd think of her as a thief, stealing the tail end of the day, the hours nobody else wanted or used.
Marita GoldenBut it's far too late for us; ring, hair, letters, photographs - all traces of our love will be scattered then, like an anagram.
Daniel HandlerCapitalization implies a hierarchy, that some letters are more special than others.
Douglas CouplandIt 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 MametYOU have no room to laugh, that's all. I'm not doing any worse with Boovish than you did with English.' Get off of the car,' J.Lo huffed. 'I am an English superstar.' Uh-uh. There's no comparison. 'Gratuity' in written Boovish has seventeen different bubbles that all have to be the right size and in the right place. 'J.Lo' in written English only has three letters, and you still spelled it 'M-smiley face-pound sign.
Adam RexMr. Franzen said he and Mr. Wallace, over years of letters and conversations about the ethical role of the novelist, had come to the joint conclusion that the purpose of writing fiction was โa way out of loneliness.โ (NY Times article on the memorial service of David Foster Wallace.)
Jonathan FranzenAfter he made up his mind to spend the rest of the war in the hospital, Yossarian wrote letters to everyone he knew saying that he was in the hospital but never mentioning why. One day he had a better idea. To everyone he knew he wrote that he was going on a very dangerous mission. "They asked for volunteers. It's very dangerous, but someone has to do it. I'll write you the instant I get back." And he had not written anyone since.
Joseph Hellerclosed my eyes and listened. It was like music I'd heard all my life, even more than "This Lullaby." All those keystrokes, all those letters, so many words. I brushed my fingers over the beads and watched as her image rippled, like it was on water, breaking apart gently and shimmering before becoming whole again.
Sarah DessenPut it down in capital letters: SELF-DEVELOPMENT IS A HIGHER DUTY THAN SELF-SACRIFICE. The thing that most retards and militates against womenโs self development is self-sacrifice.
Elizabeth Cady StantonOf 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. WilsonFor 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 PyleI love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them. There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood.
Rainer Maria RilkeI knew [Eva Braun] wrote to [Adolf Hitler], I would see her writing to him and I would see her reading his notes or letters. She kept all that in a safe at the Berghof and nobody got near that safe except Hitler or Eva.
Gretl BraunThe forward step must be made in silence. We detach ourselves from word forms - this can be accomplished by substituting for words, letters, concepts, verbal concepts, other modes of expressions: for example, color.
William S. BurroughsThere would be this algebraic equation with an equals sign in the middle, and all the components would have different letters of the alphabet. It would come out right with x+z^2+t/q=y+co, and the co would be clothes off!
Tom StoppardSpread 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 HeyerWhat 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 PlathLongevity in my family's been pretty good. And my grandparents were pretty spry at their age, so I figured I'd probably stay skinny and fairly agile. I used to do old men all the time in sketches. And there used to be an organization called the Gray Panthers. And they would send me, oh, terrible letters about making fun of old people. And I would just always say, "I'm playing the old person I intend to become!"
Dick Van DykeRecognition, gratefulness exist.[ Speech for the Nobel Prize] is to show that this is what has come from what [Albert Camus] teacher did for him. And also throughout the world there are Monsieur Germains [his old schoolteacher] everywhere. That's why I published the letters, so that he could have a place in the work.
Catherine CamusThere is snobbery in the idea that the modern cult of celebrity has not touched the lofty realm of letters. We are like visitors to a garden or flower show who wander the pathways and do not notice the beautiful flora but instead exchange murmurs about the appearance of the soil.
Zia Haider RahmanIt was my study of the two Corinthian letters that first caused me to concentrate my attention more directly on the relation of the apostle Paul to the older apostles.
Ferdinand Christian BaurIf letters did not exist, what dark depressions would come over one! When one has been worrying about something and wants to tell a certain person about it, what a relief it is to put it all down in a letter! Still greater is one's joy when a reply arrives. At that moment a letter really seems like an elixir of life.
Sei ShonagonReal orgies are never so exciting as pornographic books. In a volume by Pierre Louys all the girls are young and their figures perfect; there's no hiccoughing or bad breath, no fatigue or boredom, no sudden recollections of unpaid bills or business letters unanswered, to interrupt the raptures. Art gives you the sensation, the thought, the feeling quite pure--chemically pure, I mean,... not morally.
Aldous HuxleyShe read and read and read, but she was stuffing herself with the letters on the page like an unhappy child stuffing itself with chocolate. They didnโt taste bad, but she was still unhappy.
Cornelia FunkeI have had a number of threatening letters each week, some telling me the actual time and method of my death, and I don't like it.
Winston ChurchillThe stories are success stories. The letters from listeners often touch the heart and can be inspiring.
Casey KasemI have a file of letters and bits of ephemera from friends who have died. I have had lots of friends who died of AIDS.
Rachel MaddowTo assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.
Joan Didion