15 October (1824): Stendhal to Clémentine Beugnot
Later in life, Stendhal would declare, “The honor of having inspired me with the greatest passion, is to be debated between Mélanie, Alexandrine, Métilde and...
14 October (1854): Thomas De Quincey to Emily De Quincey
"It is a most rational justification of a name to my thinking—not that it expresses a quality as emphatically existing at a time when powers...
13 October (1819): John Keats to Fanny Brawne
My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again—my Life seems to stop there—I...
9 October (1944): Neal Cassady to Justin Brierly
By noting this difference, modifying it & by a process of elimination, I find not only the amount, but also the degree, of influence you've...
9 October (1927): Federico Garcia Lorca to Sebastian Gasch
"Dalí inspires the same pure emotion (and may God Our Father give me) as that of the baby Jesus abandoned on the doorstep of Bethlehem,...
7 October (1827): Charles Lamb to H. Dodwell
Your little pig found his way to Enfield this morning without his feet, or rather his little feet came first, and as I guessed the...
6 October (1965): Anne Sexton to Charles Newman
I would always park at a LOADING ZONE sign and tell them “It’s okay, because we are going to get loaded” and off we’d pile...
2 October (1913): Marsden Hartley to Gertrude Stein
I have your letter this morning & want to thank you profoundly for your telegram & for the money—& for your kind support generally. The...
1 October (1931): Delmore Schwartz to Julian Sawyer
The holiest act is to create, to bring more things into existence.
30 September (1824): Harriet Preble to Anica Preble Barlow
The most charming of all gifts is that of being able to express one's thoughts with elegance; it will often supply the place of wit...
26 September (1854): Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins
He eats stony apples, and harbours designs upon his fellow-creatures until he has become light-headed. From the couch rendered uneasy by this disorder he has...
25 September (1750): Samuel Johnson to James Elphinston
Below, Samuel Johnson writes to close friend James Elphinston, whose mother had recently passed. “I read the letters in which you relate your mother’s death to...
24 September (1922): Bertolt Brecht to Arnolt Bronnen
What is a murderer’s conscience compared to the stinking dung pit in the back of my head?
23 September (1818): John Keats to John Hamilton Reynolds
Indeed I am grieved on your account that I am not at the same time happy—But I conjure you to think at Present of nothing...
22 September (1902): Rainer Maria Rilke to Auguste Rodin
It doubtless seems somewhat strange that I am writing you, since (in the greatness of your generosity) you have given me the possibility of seeing...
19 September (1971): J.R.R. Tolkien to Carole Batten-Phelps
...I feel as if an ever darkening sky over our present world had been suddenly pierced, the clouds rolled back, and an almost forgotten sunlight...
18 September (1979): Philip Larkin to Kingsley Amis
...there are whole legions of novelists I’ve never read and who I think of as ‘modern’, like Doris Lessing. My mind has stopped at 1945,...
17 September (1971): Walker Percy to Shelby Foote
Walker Percy here writes to fellow Shelby Foote about the reception of his new novel, Love in the Ruins. A dystopian satire about a genius, lapsed-Catholic inventor...
16 September (1913): Ezra Pound to Harriet Monroe
And—dieu le sait—there are few enough people on this stupid little island who know anything beyond Verlaine and Baudelaire—neither of whom is the least...
15 September (1961): Anne Sexton to Anthony Hecht
To be your friend, a good close friend, is not complicated by neurotic demands. This is unusual. Maybe you don’t know it, damn it …...
12 September (1939): W.C. Fields to Carlotta Monti
Is the gentleman you intend to marry financially solvent? Can he take care of you when he gets old like me? How long have you...
11 September (1967): Kurt Vonnegut to Robert Scholes
Let’s leave the writing to the writers, Scholes.
10 September (1953): Eudora Welty to William Maxwell
Long ago when my stories were short (I wish they were back) I used to use ordinary paste and put the story together in one...
9 September (1963): François Truffaut to Helen Scott
I now no longer think of anything but the film and making a good job of it.
