#letters

When I think of the library of Alexandria and of the fact that, although it burnt down, people continue to sort the letters of the alphabet according to that tradition, then that makes certain expressions of modernity, even of interventions on the textual level, possible. ↗

— Alexander Kluge

#alexandria #alphabet #although #burnt #certain

One of the things that's pretty unique about nu shu, when you look especially at these old letters and stories that have been saved, is that there are certain lines that are very standard that are used again and again. It's almost like a formula in a sense, so that these certain lines come up again and again. ↗

— Lisa See

#again #almost #been #certain #come

I've never had a love letter before. Not from anyone. It is a most wonderful thing to receive. I realise that it makes a present to me of your life, not just your love. ↗

— Anthony McDonald

#love #life

If a man loves you he’s not going to ask you to give up the things you love. ↗

— Geraldine Solon

#love-letters #relationships #love

Dear Beloved woman, Time… so much time has passed since my love wrote his last words for me. And yet I remember it as if it were yesterday. I remember writing back and for the first time since I had left home I told my love what kind of darkness surrounded me here. I forgot all the sweet things my father had said to my mother when he was away. I forgot how they got her through all those long and lonely nights. ↗

— Talon P.S.

#dear-john #letters #soldiers #war #love

A real love letter is made of insight, understanding, and compassion. Otherwise it's not a love letter. A true love letter can produce a transformation in the other person, and therefore in the world. But before it produces a transformation in the other person, it has to produce a transformation within us. Some letters may take the whole of our lifetime to write. ↗

— Thích Nhất Hạnh

#letters #love #love-letters #love

Y, sin embargo, mentiría si dijera que la extraño. Es el hechizo más perfecto y más doloroso. Usted está aquí, igual que yo y con mayor intensidad aún; allí donde yo estoy, está usted, como yo y más intensamente aún. No bromeo. A veces imagino que usted -que está aquí- extraña mi presencia y pregunta: "¿Pero dónde está? ¿Acaso no escribía diciendo que estaba en Merano? [...] El día es tan corto. Transcurre y termina con usted y fuera de usted sólo hay unas pocas nimiedades. Apenas me queda un rato para escribirle a la verdadera Milena, porque la Milena más verdadera aún ha estado aquí todo el día, en la habitación, en el balcón, en las nubes. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#spanish #spanish

When your defenses are down, it's alarming and beautiful - all that strength contained in a glass jar of innocence." He swallowed. "I've loved you since the moment you realized the astronomical odds of us meeting like that, because in that brief second, I watched you suddenly open your heart to the possibility of something magical happening - something unexpected. ↗

— Lynda Meyers

#letters-from-the-ledge #lftl #lynda-meyers #nate #quotes-of-life

Now everybody who knows anything at all knows perfectly well that even a business letter does not deserve the paper on which it is written unless it contains at least one significant phrase that is worth waking up in the night to remember and think about. ↗

— Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

#writing #business

Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring - the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity - he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death. Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity! ↗

— Herman Melville

#letters #death