Quotes from my Blog. Letters

Now, tell me if I should come join you.

My life is yours.”

– Arthur Rimbaud (1854—1891), from a letter to his Paul Verlaine (1844—1896), dated July 4, 1873, in: “I Promise to be Good. The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud”, translated from the French by Watt Mason

“I wish you were in front of me – would hold me close just a minute before I go on to the things I must do – ”

– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Canyon, Texas, dated July 2, 1917, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“… now and again, when I re-read my letters, I am a little embarrassed because they talk of almost nothing of substance and I wonder what this serious man will think of me, the whole letter being such a lot of nonsense. Then I shake my head and laugh at myself.”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated Saturday, December 14, 1940, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange

“I am like a fly without a head; I don’t know where to turn, nor what to do; hours go by, while I’m sitting here at the desk, thinking of so many things… if anybody, in hiding, were here spying on me, he’d think I was doped.”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated February 28, 1930, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“And good-night, dear friend of my heart… Why aren’t you here? It is horrid not to live next door to those one loves.

– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), Nohant, dated 1867, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“Do you know what I want – when I want? Darkness, light, transfiguration. The most remote headland of another’s soul – and my own. Words that one will never hear or speak. The improbable. The miraculous. A miracle.

You will get (for in the end you will surely get me) a strange, sad, dreaming, singing little monster struggling to escape from your hand.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke”, translated from the Russian by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, and Jamey Gambrell

“Sometimes I could just undress you and lick you from head to toe. In my sleep I run my hands over the curves in your physique – what a thrill! Like being proficient in runs on the piano.”

– Henry Miller (1891—1980), from a letter to Brenda Venus (born 1947), dated October 7, 1976, in: “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus”

“I write you, me beloved one, very often, and you write very little. You are wicked and naughty, very naughty, as much as you are fickle.”

– Napoleon Bonaparte (1769—1821), from a letter to Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763—1814), Verona, dated July 17, 1796 (pbs.org)

“I’m just blessed that I’ve confessed my love to you, that I’ve experienced confessing love to someone. This never happened before… And in life that mutual feeling has to fight its way through! Believe me, there’d be no need for life if it couldn’t bubble over with that intoxication. It’s the height of existence; it’s like a flower which waits for the bee to bring the pollen.

The flower must surely grieve when it finishes flowering in the cold, in the frost.”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated May 2, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell

“If I only could make you realise how very badly I miss you and how empty everything is for me without you. At times you feel that the difficulties of our movements and our existence weigh on me, and at times I do not do things easily or gracefully. But when you are not there I realise how much I love doing things for you and how nothing is really the matter as long as we share things.”

– Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942), from a letter to Elsie Rosaline Masson (1890—1935), dated Monday October 3, 1933, in: “The Story of a Marriage. The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson”

“I only wished to send you one more kiss before I went to sleep, to tell you that I love you… So, a kiss, a quick one, you know what kind, and one more, and oh again still more, and still more under your chin, in that spot I love on your very soft skin, and on your chest, where I place my heart.”

– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to Louise Colet (1810—1876), in: “Rage and fire: a life of Louise Colet, pioneer feminist, literary star, Flaubert’s muse” by Francine du Plessix Gray

“When I am alone and have had no news from you for quite a while, then I get despondent.”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated December 24, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange

“ – Maybe it’s stupid to be in love. – To have a heart. All weakness. All meaningless. To live & be – without thought of other – maybe that’s the way.”

– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 5, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“I’ll send you, one of these days, a bunch of poems I composed during these lost evenings. They are written for you alone and not for other readers – not because there is anything bad, but because they are only for you.”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated April 8, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“This paper feels too little for me but I’m going to try to write to you anyway – I guess we often do things in spite of difficulties —.”

– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1886), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Charlottesville, Virginia, dated August 6, 1916, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″

“What do I get out of it when they’re always telling me that I appear young? They should rather ask for whom my heart aches and give me a cure. I’d drink it by the spoonful not only three times daily but all the time. You don’t understand this, and that’s good.”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated July 4, 1924, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell

“My love,

I’m writing this in bed. Yesterday, I couldn’t have managed it but just slept, with gargling as my sole distraction. I had a very sore throat and even some temperature… If I weren’t so uncomfortably positioned for writing, I’d spend pages telling you how happy I am and how much I love you. But I take comfort from the fact that you felt it clearly yourself, didn’t you, little man? Here are a hundred kisses, each carrying the same message.”

– Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986), from a letter to Jean-Paul Sartre (1905—1980), dated January 6, 1930, in: “Letters to Sartre”, translated from the French by Quintin Hoare

“That is all, my dear old friend, it is not my fault, I embrace you with all my heart. For the moment that is the only thing that is functioning. My brain is too stupefied.”

– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), dated March 17, 1872, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“Do you think poetry was ever generally understood – or can be? Is the business of it to tell people what they know already, as they know it, and so precisely that they shall be able to cry out – “here you should supply this – that, you eventually pass over, and I will help you from my own stock?” It is all teaching, on the contrary, and the people hate to be taught…

A poet’s affair is with God, to whom he is accountable, and to whom is his reward: look elsewhere and you find misery enough.”

– Robert Browning (1812—1889), from a letter to John Ruskin (1819—1900), Paris, dated December 10, 1855, in: “The Life and Work of John Ruskin” by William Gershom Collingwood

“… do write, in the name of all that is holy, or I shall be lonesome. It’s as if I were in jail and my spirits are very low.”

– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to his future wife, Olga Knipper (1868—1959), Yalta, dated October 30, 1899, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer

“Your photo, lit up by the midday sun, is smiling at me. I take your head in my hands and kiss you with deepest love and say farewell, keep well, stay confident, as I am.”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated November 3, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange

“We must have someone who is kind above all, and perfectly honest.”

– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to George Sand (1804—1876), dated March, 1872, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“This is how it is with me: I write exactly as if I were talking to you, without thinking about what I want to write, a letter like that is meant to replace a conversation or a cosy little chat.”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated December 31, 1940, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange

“This book must be possessed rather than read, as a man does not read a woman but possesses her.”

– Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), Leningrad, dated October 9, 1948, referring to the Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin

“God bless you. It is very lonesome without You. I embrace you firmly and gently, as I love you.”

– Grand Duchess Tatyana Nikolaevna (1897—1918), from a letter to her father, Nikolay Alexandrovich (Nikolay II, the last Emperor of all Russia, 1868—1918), dated December 2, 1914

“I think of you as my wife, dear to me as you ever will be, and happy will be the home when you are given to my care and love.”

– Nathaniel Dawson (1829—1895), from a letter to Elodie Todd (1840—1877), Manassas Junction, dated August 1, 1861, in: “Practical Strangers. The Courtship Correspondence of Nathaniel Dawson and Elodie Todd, Sister of Mary Todd Lincoln”, edited by Stephen Berry and Angela Esco Elder

“… and as ever I am turning to you when there is something special on my mind that I cannot quite deal with by myself.”

– Gretel Adorno (1902—1993), from a letter to Walter Benjamin (1892—1940), Berlin, dated January 18, 1937, in: “Gretel Adorno and Walter Benjamin. Correspondence 1930—1940″, translated from the German by Wieland Hoban

“She is very beautiful but looks much worse when, on special occasions, she goes to the hairdresser and comes back vulgarly crimped for two or three days, until the set wears off.”

– Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from a letter to Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), Moscow, dated July 1,1932, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin

“Whether you wish or not, I have already taken you there inside, where I place everything what I treasure, before I look at it, seeing it already inside.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Anatoly Shteiger, dated July 29, 1936, translated from the Russian by Natalija Arlauskaite, in: “Possession without a touch: letters of Marina Tsvetaeva”

“I was quiet and she could HEAR, she could understand what my silence meant.”

– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated November 30, 1949, in: “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena

“… my dear it is a long time now since I heard from you. There is no recent letter for me to set my foot upon as a stepping stone toward you.”

– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to Frank Thompson (1918—1889), dated July 29th, 1943, in: “Iris Murdoch, a Writer at War. Letters and Diaries, 1939—1945″

“I long so desperately for you, so that I would prefer to stay at home all the time like a hermit because nothing makes me happy at the moment and now I will be lucky if I get something from you this week. How long will this situation last?”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated July 18, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange

“Marina, my golden Friend, my marvelous, supernaturally fated destiny, my morning mist-on-the-rise soul, Marina.”

– Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from a letter to Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), dated June 14, 1924, in: “No Love Without Poetry. The Memoirs of Marina Tsvetaeva’s Daughter”, by Ariadna Efron, edited and translated from the Russian by Diane Nemec Ignashev

“There will never be a chair in your life empty of me.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Abram Vishnyak (1895—1943), translated from the Russian by Natalija Arlauskaite, in: “Possession without a touch: letters of Marina Tsvetaeva”

“He is always in my heart. Ah, what one has truly loved, one can never leave.”

– Germaine de Staël (1766—1817), from a letter to Madame Juliette Recamier (1777—1849), Coppet, dated May 1, 1811, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper

“My wish for you is that you should remain at heart just as I remember you many years ago… I am sure that yours will be a bright life after all your trials.”

– Mikhail Bulgakov (1891—1940), from a letter to his brother Nikolay Bulgakov (1989—1966), Moscow, dated July 23, 1929, in: “Manuscripts don’t burn: Mikhail Bulgakov, a life in letters and diaries”, edited by J.A.R.Curtis

“When I have no letter, I feel you could be dead, and it is very sad. When I have a letter, I feel you are so living that I become very impatient; I want to see you. So, I have never peace, but why should I? Love is much better than peace.”

– Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986), from a letter to Nelson Algren (1909—1981), in: “A Transatlantic Love Affair. Letters to Nelson Algren” (https://archive.nytimes.com/)

“I am as weary as a ballerina after five acts and eight tableaux.”

– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to his sister, Maria Chekhova (1863—1957), Moscow, dated January 14, 1891, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer

“What do I want from you? What I want from all of poetry and from each line of a poem: the truth of this moment. That’s as far as truth goes. Never turns to wood – always to ashes.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), St.-Gilles-sur-Vie, dated August 22, 1926, in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer maria Rilke”, translated by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, Jamey Gambrell

“So are you black like a little devil? And should I fear you? Oh no, little soul, I don’t fear you. It’s true you have arms which are strong, but you also have arms which are soft, which embrace. I’d long for the latter; then you’d be defenceless; and what would I do with you? I’d forget all the world – for you’d be the most beautiful world of all. I’d pour out the deepest dark around us – until only our eyes would shine like stars. I wouldn’t want to see anything, only my mouth would kiss your body, my mouth would seek that greatest happiness and would find it. You know, I imagine now that you’re my wife, not a little in that word, as I imagine it: one soul, one body! My dear beloved! – you’re mine and I live in you. It’s impossible to change anything in this. We have our world in which the sun doesn’t set.”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated May 2, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell

“I do not understand why you call sadness and unhappiness a weakness. Does strength consist in being unable to feel sad?”

– Karolina Pavlova (1807—1893), from a letter to Boris Utin, dated June 30, 1854, in:“Essays on Karolina Pavlova”, edited by Alexander Lehrman and Susanne Fusso

“My tenderness, my happiness, what words can I write for you? How strange that although my life’s work is moving a pen over paper, I don’t know how to tell you how I love, how I desire you. Such agitation – and such divine peace: melting clouds immersed in sunshine – mounds of happiness.”

– Vladimir Nabokov (1899—1977), from a letter to Vera Nabokov (1902—1991), dated June 17, 1926, “Letters to Vera”, edited and translated from the Russian by Olga Voronina and Brian Boyd

“You are the only one in the world who could advise me about ‘me’”

– Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931), from a letter to Mary Elizabeth Haskell (1873—1964), dated August 28, 1924, in: “Beloved prophet; the love letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell and her private journal”

“I feel within myself such a turmoil of thoughts and feelings, that anybody – if he could experience it personally for just one moment – would feel himself being swept away into the whirling spiral of a storm and seized by such a fit of dizziness as to go insane from it or even die. I still succeed in resisting, and I keep steady. I’ll keep steady to the last. And if I should die – don’t be afraid – I’ll be able to die, as a person who knew how to suffer so much.”

– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated February 28, 1930, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani

“Afterwards, when I read your letter the second time, I understood everything, and was immediately sorry, deeply sorrowed as I read your expressions that were replete with sadness and melancholy, I didn’t expect such a letter. I thought the holidays would bring you a little joy. Tis was my wish that I have hoped for you and always will. I wanted you to be happy even if you missed me, that you would have the best memories possible of Christmas […] so that you would not suffer, but that’s not the way it was for you”

– Antonietta Petris, from a letter to her fiancé, Loris Palma, dated 6 January 1949, in: “Love in the time of migration. Lovers’ Correspondence between Italy and Canada, 1948—1957″ by Sonia Cancian

“How thrilled I always am when I catch sight of the disciplined tumult of your handwriting, those magnificent volutes as of an infinite and pulsating sea from the bosom of which your thought emerges sparkling like Aphrodite, as divine and as beautiful. But when, through some excess of kindness or refinement of graciousness as in your letter of this morning, it literally tortures me by arousing in me gratitude I feel I shall never be capable of expressing, then this joy is painful and mingles: ‘The foam of pleasure with tears of pain’”

– Marcel Proust (1871—1922), from a letter to Anna de Noailles (1876—1933), dated Friday evening, 8 January, 1904, in “Selected Letters, Vol. 2: 1904—1909”, translated from the French by Terence Kilmartin

“You old monkey, how dare you say you will kiss me without my permission as much as you like! I never heard of such impudence before! You better not try it, otherwise my revenge will be most terrible.”

– Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth (the future last Empress of Russia, 1872—1918), from a letter to tsesarevich Nikolay Alexandrovich (the future last Emperor of all Russia, Nikolay II, 1868—1918), dated September 23, 1894

“My thoughts are with you all the time too now, especially when I can gather them together in the evening and at night.”

– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated January 28, 1942, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevang

“In the thought that I have you, that you’re mine, lies all my joy of life. By it you give me the greatest happiness I’ve ever wished and which I never got and never really wanted from anyone before. I beam with pleasure, where possible I wish and do only good to others. Because you’re in me, because you’ve dominated me completely, I don’t long for anything else. I don’t have words to express my longing for you, to be close to you… it’s hard to calm myself. But the fire that you’ve set alight in me is necessary. Let it bum, let it flame, the desire of having you, of having you!”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated April 30, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell

“Men always find that the most serious thing of their existence is enjoyment.”

– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to George Sand (1804—1876), dated January, 1867, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie

“Your letter was delightful – red and yellow wine to me…”

– Oscar Wilde (1854—1900), from a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas (1870—1945), Savoy Hotel, London, dated early March, 1893, in: “Oscar Wilde: A Life In Letters” by Merlin Holland

“Darling extraordinary egocentric impossible… I do love you.”

– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to David Hicks (1929—1998), dated December 4, 1945, in: “Iris Murdoch, a Writer At War. Letters and Diaries, 1939—1945″

“Over the years of my literary work, I have become weary. I have some justification, but no consolation.”

– Mikhail Bulgakov (1891—1940), from a letter to his friend Pavel Popov, Moscow, dated April 14—20, 1932, in: “Manuscripts don’t burn: Mikhail Bulgakov, a life in letters and diaries”, edited by J.A.R.Curtis

“Love lives on words and dies of deeds.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), St. Gilles, dated August 22, 1926, in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke”, translated by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, Jamey Gambrell

“Every year it’s the same thing over and over again…”

– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858—1943), Melikhovo, dated November 26, 1895, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer

“I don’t understand why you’re not here sleeping next to me. I don’t know why you’re not with me.”

– Gabriela Mistral (1889—1957), from a letter to Doris Dana (1920—2006), dated December 3, 1949, in: “Gabriela Mistral’s Letters to Doris Dana”, translated by Velma Garcia-Gorena

“… do you understand why I am suffering so on your account, and what the nature of this suffering is? Even when a person is in love, he is capable of crossing the road and observing his agitation from a distance, but there is something between you and me that makes it impossible for me to leave you and look back.”

– Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from a letter to Olga Freidenberg (1890—1955), Moscow, July, dated 23, 1910, in: “The Correspondence of Boris Pasternak and Olga Freidenberg, 1910—1954″, translated from the Russian by Elliott Mossman and Margaret Wettlin

“Darling, I am thinking so much about you. Every time I wake in the night and every hour of the day. Sometimes I am very miserable to think of our being so parted, then comes your dear letter and comforts me.”

– Elsie Rosaline Masson (1890—1935), from a letter to Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942), dated February 26, 1935, in: “The Story of a Marriage. The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson.”

“My last words: stay alive, I don’t need anything else”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), in: “A Russian Psyche: The Poetic Mind Of Marina Tsvetaeva” by Alyssa W. Dinega

“The capacity for taking offense is a quality confined to elevated mind…”

– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to Nikolay Chekhov (1858—1889), Moscow, dated March, 1886, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer

“Three days ago I was at a Christmas party for the insane, held in the violent ward. Too bad you weren’t there.”

– Anton Chekhov (1860—1904), from a letter to Alexander Chekhov (1855—1913), Yalta, dated December 30, 1893, in: “The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov”, translated from the Russian by Sidonie Lederer

“… dear soul, let that which secretly binds us never pass away. God, let no-one dare tear it asunder. I’ll guard this secret so that no-one will find it out. After all I won’t harm anyone by loving you so unutterably…

With everyone else I’ve stood as if behind a fence; and when standing with you I want there to be not a hair’s breadth between us. You can have me whole, dear soul, and please give yourself whole to me in the same way.”

– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated April 30, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell

“You must know that you do not take me away from anywhere, that I am already taken away from every place in the world and from myself toward a single one, where I never arrive. (What cowardice to tell you this!)”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Abram Vishnyak (1895—1943), from “Florentine nights. Nine Letters With a Tenth Kept Back and an Eleventh Received”, in: “Readings: The Poetics of Blanchot, Joyce, Kafka, Kleist, Lispector, and Tsvetayeva” by H. Cixous, translated from the French by Verena A. Conley

“I will always be a friend of yours, you ought never to doubt that.”

– Germaine de Staël (1766—1817), from a letter to Benjamin Constant (1767—1830), London, dated January 23, 1814, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper

“You and I never believed in our meeting here on earth, any more than we believed in life on this earth, isn’t that so?

I kiss you… on the lips? on the temple? on the forehead? Of course on the lips, for real, as if alive.”

– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Rainer Maria Rilke (1875—1926), the letter she wrote after he died, dated December 31, 1926-February 8, 1927, in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke”, translated by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, Jamey Gambrell

“I’ve been carrying around a pile of letters I wrote to you. It’s a lot of writing, because except for my travel days I write to you every night. I shouldn’t load you down like that, but though I’m thinking about you the entire day, at night my memory of you becomes so intense that I can’t do anything else but write to you. It’s like a compulsion.”