Quotes About Letters

If he who is organized by the divine for spiritual communion, refuse and bury his talent in the earth, even though he should want natural bread, shame and confusion of face will pursue him throughout life to eternity. -- William Blake, The letters of William Blake (1906)

Chamberlain's obsequiousness, his exaggerated flattery, in these letters can be nauseating. "Your Majesty and your subjects," he wrote, "have been born in a holy shrine," and he informed Wilhelm that he had placed his portrait in his study opposite one of Christ by Leonardo so that while he worked he often paced up and down between the countenance of his Savior and his sovereign.

the second book's for readers, he said. But you can't know when they'll come, if they do. It's the book for telling: no code for that one. But—he counted one again and had my close attention—you can still use it to tell secrets and send messages. Even so. You could say them right out, but you can hide them in the words too, in their letters, in the ordering on lines, the arrangements and rhythms.

In the history of the world there was not one example of a man ever having written a satisfactory letter to a woman who mattered to him.

Riley put on his snow boots and coat and trudged across the ballfields to the scene of the "crime." The edges of the FART letters were crusting over with ice. Riley wondered why Mr. Ball hadn't sent out the custodians to plow away or cover up the word. Probably because it was on Old Man Jenkins's property, not the school's.

Ah," said Jake. "Very tricky, Jenna. The answer, of course, is 'diner.' 'Fiend' is the word you would get if you took away one letter—'r' in this instance—but didn't rearrange the letters. 'Diner' fulfills both criteria specified in the question.

How could I make you understand the letters were the realest thing I'd ever done? By calling it a game you were negating all my feelings. Even if this love for you could never be returned I wanted recognition. And so I started ranting on about Guatemala. The femme seduction trip seemed so corrupt and I was clueless how to do it. The only way I knew of reaching you apart from fucking was through ideas and words.

By around 480, as he put it, 'now that the old degrees of official rank are swept away . . . the only token of nobility will henceforth be a knowledge of letters'; the official hierarchy had gone, only traditional Roman culture survived.

The most common double-letter pairing in the English language being the double L, of course, challenged only by the double T.

Your old man sent me anonymous letters himself to make me divorce him." She rippled with he-hes. "I hung on to spite him. I didn't want him. It's my only pleasure left." She laughed.

Moreover, in order to show forth her wisdom and the excellence of her mind to the centuries to come, she [Nicostrata/Carmentis] worked and studied so hard that she invented her own letters, which were completely different from those of other nations, that is, she established the Latin alphabet and syntax, spelling, the difference between the vowels and consonants, as well as a complete introduction to the science of grammar.

wrote no letters to the editor. Cool admiration, but no fire.

Ellery me ha subido a 250 dólares por guión; si la cosa se mantiene hasta junio, podré ir yo a Inglaterra y explorar yo misma mi librería. Si me veo con valor para hacerlo, claro. Vengo escribiéndoles cartas de lo más descaradas desde la seguridad que me dan los 5.000 kilómetros que hay por medio. Probablemente entraré un día en esa tienda y saldré de ella al cabo de un rato sin decirles quién soy.

Londres, por las cartas que escribí, ¡han colocado, en el emplazamiento de la librería, una placa de cobre con mi nombre! Sigo pensando que soy un escritora sin cultura ni demasiado talento, pero a pesar de todo ¡me han dedicado una placa en un muro de Londres.

podre ir yo a Inglaterra y explorar misma a mi librería. Si me veo con el valor para hacerlo, claro. Vengo escribiéndoles cartas de los mas descaradas desde la seguridad que me dan 5000 kilómetros que hay de por medio. Probablemente entrare un día en esa tienda y saldré de ella al cabo de un rato sin decirles quien soy.

84, Charing Cross Road was no best seller, you understand; it didn't make me rich or famous. It just got me hundreds of letters and phone calls from people I never knew existed; it got me wonderful reviews; it restored a self-confidence and self-esteem I'd lost somewhere along the way, God knows how many years ago. It brought me to England. It changed my life.

In a state of war, one is always waiting. We have become waiting-machines. For the moment it is food we are waiting for. Then it will be the post. But each in its turn. When we have done with dinner we will think about the letters. After that, we shall set ourselves to wait for something else.

Double standards are inspiration to men of letters, but they are apt to be fatal to politicians.

I have received no more than one or two letters in my life that were worth the postage.

Johnson was not impressed. He conceded that the letters might have made a 'very pretty' book (the faintest of faint praise), then commented, stingingly, that they 'teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master'. 8 Here, as in the famous letter and the Dictionary's entry under 'patron', Chesterfield's errors are more lastingly preserved than any of his achievements. There

A formula for answering controversial letters -- without even reading the letters Dear Sir (or Madame) You may be right.

The fact is, I find it extremely difficult to force myself to read old letters... Whenever one really knows the facts, one finds that what is accepted by contemporaries or posterity as the truth about them is so distorted or out of focus that it is not worth worrying about.

Miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.

I work in the house next to where I live. We bought a smaller house that I use as my office and the place where my two employees work... We've got tens of thousands of letters from kids stored all over the house in places you would usually put dishes and other things like that.