Popular quotes about Letters! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 51
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 KincaidFirst Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rusack. In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending.
Tim O'BrienEight years ago, I was drawn into Keats's world by Andrew Motion's biography. Soon I was reading back and forth between Keats's letters and his poems. The letters were fresh, intimate and irreverent, as though he were present and speaking. The Keats spell went very deep for me.
Jane CampionA 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 WoodroffeI saw a few lines from a few, there were hundreds of them, all [Adolf Hitler] letters and [Eva Braun] replies written on carbon paper. I just saw that her letters to him were lengthy, his were much shorter. I wouldn't intrude on their privacy and I had given her my word.
Gretl BraunYou can email me, but I prefer letters that come through conventional mail. I like letters that have been licked by strangers.
David LettermanWhen I was in elementary school, I used to write letters to myself. I'd write letters and go 'Dear Kristen-at-16-years-old, happy birthday. I hope you're doing something.'
Kristin KreukLetters 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 HardwickI used to get letters from guys in prison. Anymore now I don't even open them. They'd ask me to please sign a couple of cards for their children. Then I see them on eBay two weeks later. Or the people that write and say, "You is one of my favorite cartoonists. I would like a drawing, please." I guess they encourage inmates to write letters to celebrities. It's like a way to make money by selling autographs or something. Give me a break.
Mike RoyerAt the end, [Eva Braun] begged me to spare these letters [to Adolf Hitler] and bury them. She specifically wrote to me and told me over the phone not to read any of the letters, she made me promise.
Gretl BraunI get letters from two kinds of readers. History buffs, who love to read history and biography for fun, and then kids who want to be writers but who rarely come out and say so in their letters. You can tell by the questions they ask - How did you get your ๏ฌrst book published? How long do you spend on a book? So I guess those are the readers that I'm writing for - kids who enjoy that kind of book, because they're interested in history, in other people's lives, in what has happened in the world. I believe that they're the ones who are going to be the movers and shakers.
Russell FreedmanJan Bhagidari is the biggest asset of a democracy. We are increasing it through MyGov, letters from citizens, Mann Ki Baat and other initiatives.
Narendra ModiUntil very recently, most knowledge was inaccessible to people who couldn't read text. But this is changing. The computer opens up other channels of gaining knowledge. If someone is blind, we now have very good machines that will read to him. If someone can't recognize letters, he also will have access to knowledge through sound and images.
Seymour PapertSurely education has no meaning unless it helps you understand the vast experience of life with all its subtleties, with its extraordinary beauty, its sorrows and joys. You may earn degrees, you may have a series of letters after your name and land a good job, but then what? What is the point of it all if in the process your mind becomes dull, weary, stupid?
Jiddu KrishnamurtiIan McEwan is a very good writer; the first half of Atonement alone would ensure him a lasting place in English letters.
John BanvilleMost personal correspondence of today consists of letters the first half of which are given over to an indexed statement of why the writer hasn't written before, followed by one paragraph of small talk, with the remainder devoted to reasons why it is imperative that the letter be brought to a close.
Robert BenchleyMelt all the guns, I thought, break the knives, burn the guillotines-and the malicious will still write letters that kill.
Ray BradburyThis Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand... That means no more illegal wire-tapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient. That is not who we are.
Barack ObamaAll men of genius, and all those who have gained rank in the republic of letters, are brothers, whatever may be the land of their nativity.
Napoleon BonaparteScared and sacred are spelled with the same letters. Awful proceeds from the same root word as awesome. Terrify and terrific. Every negative experience holds the seed of transformation.
Alan CohenIt is by the benefit of letters that absent friends are in a manner brought together.
Seneca the YoungerThe nowadays ruling that no word is unprintable has, I think, done nothing whatever for beautiful letters. The boys have gone hog-wild with liberty, yet the short flat terms used over and over, both in dialogue and narrative, add neither vigor nor clarity; the effect is not of shock but of something far more dangerous โ tedium.
Dorothy ParkerA typical agent in New York gets 400 query letters a month. Of those, they might ask to read 3-4 manuscripts, and of those, they might ask to represent 1.
Nicholas SparksThank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years.
Kurt CobainAfter 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 HellerWhat I'm thinking about are the millions of people, many of whom write me very personal letters :"Dear Mr. President: I did not vote for you. I was against Obamacare. And then my son who didn't have health insurance signed up and we just found out that he had an illness. And thankfully he's now covered, otherwise he might not have gotten treatment and I might have lost my house."
Barack ObamaFeedback is a pleasant thing. I get a lot of letters from unexpected people in unexpected places.
Brian AldissNature 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 get very few nasty letters. A few from people who disapprove of the fact that I'm getting naked on television yet again. I don't know why - I suppose they don't like the idea that I'm doing that while I'm married with children.
Rupert Penry-JonesScriptures are Letters from Home. Can you imagine getting a letter from home and not even bothering to open it?
Ardeth KappI've found myself moved by letters and diaries in archives as well as trashy, summer blockbusters. It's possible to make a connection with any kind of writing - as long as the writing is good.
Sara SheridanI get letters from kids, teenagers and young girls who just want to be Mac. I've had quite a few people actually say that they're going to become a Marine or a JAG lawyer because of me... the character. I think that's pretty cool!
Catherine BellFor a long time we dreamed of a real leather ball, and at last my brother had one for his birthday. The feel of the leather, the stitching round it, the faint gold letters stamped upon it, the touch of the seam, the smell of it, all affected me so deeply that I still have that ache of beauty when I hold a cricket ball.
Alison UttleyBut you want to know about the influence of books on my life, and as I've said, there was only one. Seneca. . .Maybe that sounds dull, but the letters aren't - they're witty. I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time.
Mary Ann ShafferI used to get a lot of letters from prisoners. It used to get on my nerves. Especially family members. Everybody's innocent.
Terry McMillanIn these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision--the precious rays of light shining from the throne.
Ellen G. WhiteI am strangely addicted to the writing of long letters, which, I am afraid, tire you; and for the future, I believe, I must be less communicative, in order to be less troublesome.
Mary CollyerThe act of sending a letter is an act of generosity, even if, in retrospect, it might seem reckless. Why regret one's generosity? Why regret one's impulsiveness, one's misjudgment of others? The inevitable discovery that someone is selling letters you'd written in trust is simply to discover an obvious human truth: there are those who don't cherish us as we'd cherished them, and had wished to be cherished by them.
Joyce Carol OatesI just so desperately wanted to be published in New Yorker, and I'd so desperately try to get something in it. But I'd always get nice letters back telling me that Mr. Shawn [William Shawn, the New Yorker's editor from 1952 to 1987] just didn't like this or didn't like that about what I submitted.
Kevin SessumsBooks and opinions, no matter from whom they came, if they are in opposition to human rights, are nothing but dead letters.
Ernestine RoseI didn't know shorthand either. This meant I couldn't get a good job after college. My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand would be something else again. Everybody would want her. She would be in demand among all the up-and-coming young men and she would transcribe letter after thrilling letter. The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way. I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.
Sylvia Plath