Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me. I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all. I know young people look at me and think my youth seems so far away, but it's all around me, and you're all around me. Tiger Lily, do you think magic exists if it can be explained? I can explain why I loved you, I can explain the theory of evolution that tells me why mermaids live in Neverland and nowhere else. But it still feels magic. The lost boys all stood at our wedding. Does it seem odd to you that they could have stood at a wedding that wasn't yours and mine? It does to me. and I'm sorry for it, and for a lot, and I also wouldn't change it. It is so quiet here. Even with all the trains and the streets and the people. It's nothing like the jungle. The boys have grown. Everything has grown. Do you think you will ever grow? I hope not. I like to think that even if I change and fade away, some other people won't. I like to think that one day after I die, at least one small particle of me - of all the particles that will spread everywhere - will float all the way to Neverland, and be part of a flower or something like that, like that poet said, the one that your Tik Tok loved. I like to think that nothing's final, and that everyone gets to be together even when it looks like they don't, that it all works out even when all the evidence seems to say something else, that you and I are always young in the woods, and that I'll see you sometime again, even if it's not with any kind of eyes I know of or understand. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the way things go after all - that all things end happy. Even for you and Tik Tok. and for you and me.Always, Your PeterP.S. Please give my love to Tink. She was always such a funny little bug.
The world isn’t always what’s right in front of you, you know? It’s below, it’s above, it’s out there somewhere. Every burn of every light inside every house I see when I look down from the rooftop has a story. Sometimes we just need to change our perspective. And when I look down at everything, I remember that there’s more out there than just what’s going on in my house—the bullshit with my dad, school, my future. I look at all those full houses, and I remember, I’m just one of many. It’s not to say we’re not special or important, but it’s comforting, I guess. You don’t feel so alone.
We are loved way more by some of the people who have not contacted us in the last twelve or so months than we are loved by some of those who contact us every twelve or so days … or hours.
The stars are brilliant at this time of night and I wander these streets like a ritual I don’t dare to break for darling, the times are quite glorious.I left him by the water’s edge,still waving long after the ship was goneand if someone would have screamed my name I wouldn’t have heard for I’ve said goodbye so many times in my short life that farewells are a muscular task and I’ve taught them well. There’s a place by the side of the railway near the lake where I grew up and I used to go there to burry things and start anew. I used to go there to say goodbye. I was young and did not know many people but I had hidden things inside that I never dared to show and in silence I tried to kill them, one way or the other,leaving sin on my body scrubbing tears off with saltand I built my rituals in farewells. Endings I still cling to. So I go to the ocean to say goodbye.He left that morning, the last words still echoing in my headand though he said he’d come back one day I know a broken promise from a right onefor I have used them myself and there is no coming back.Minds like ours are can’t be tamed and the price for freedom is the price we pay.I turned away from the oceanas not to fall for its pleafor it used to seduce and consume meand there was this one nighta few years back and I was not yet accustomed to farewellsand just like now I stood waving long after the ship was gone.But I was younger then and easily fooledand the ocean was deep and dark and blueand I took my shoes off to let the water freeze my bones.I waded until I could no longer walk and it was too cold to swim but still I kept on walking at the bottom of the sea for I could not tell the difference between the ocean and the lack of someone I loved and I had not yet learned how the task of moving on is as necessary as survival.Then days passed by and I spent them with my work and now I’m writing letters I will never dare to send.But there is this one day every year or sowhen the burden gets too heavyand I collect my belongings I no longer needand make my way to the ocean to burn and drown and start anewand it is quite wonderful, setting fire to my chains and flames on written wordsand I stand there, starring deep into the heat until they’re all gone. Nothing left to hold me back.You kissed me that morning as if you’d never done it before and never would again and now I write another letter that I will never dare to send, collecting memories of loss like chains wrapped around my veins,and if you see a fire from the shore tonightit’s my chains going up in flames. The time of moon i quite glorious. We could have been so glorious.
I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldn’t even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrowfor I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspiredbut empty and weary from drinking too much at all timesand I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speakfor I don’t speak muchat alland my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too muchor not at alland never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am nota poembut an elegyat my bestbut unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because there’s only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and I’m pretty fine with that,but others are not.
A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write down feelings and observations using emotional syntax far more intimate and powerful than speech will allow.
It has been our experience that American houses insist on very comprehensive editing; that English houses as a rule require little or none and are inclined to go along with the author's script almost without query. The Canadian practice is just what you would expect--a middle-of-the-road course. We think the Americans edit too heavily and interfere with the author's rights. We think that the English publishers don't take enough editorial responsibility. Naturally, then, we consider our editing to be just about perfect. There's no doubt about it, we Canadians are a superior breed! (in a letter to author Margaret Laurence, dated May, 1960)
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.
People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers.
I get so god damn lonely and sad and filled with regrets some days. It overwhelms me as I’m sitting on the bus; watching the golden leaves from a window; a sudden burst of realisation in the middle of the night. I can’t help it and I can’t stop it. I’m alone as I’ve always been and sometimes it hurts…. but I’m learning to breathe deep through it and keep walking. I’m learning to make things nice for myself. To comfort my own heart when I wake up sad. To find small bits of friendship in a crowd full of strangers. To find a small moment of joy in a blue sky, in a trip somewhere not so far away, a long walk an early morning in December, or a handwritten letter to an old friend simply saying ”I thought of you. I hope you’re well.”No one will come and save you. No one will come riding on a white horse and take all your worries away. You have to save yourself, little by little, day by day. Build yourself a home. Take care of your body. Find something to work on. Something that makes you excited, something you want to learn. Get yourself some books and learn them by heart. Get to know the author, where he grew up, what books he read himself. Take yourself out for dinner. Dress up for no one but you and simply feel nice. it’s a lovely feeling, to feel pretty. You don’t need anyone to confirm it.I get so god damn lonely and sad and filled with regrets some days, but I’m learning to breathe deep through it and keep walking. I’m learning to make things nice for myself. Slowly building myself a home with things I like. Colors that calm me down, a plan to follow when things get dark, a few people I try to treat right. I don’t sometimes, but it’s my intent to do so. I’m learning.I’m learning to make things nice for myself. I’m learning to save myself.I’m trying, as I always will.
I only wrote prose before I met you. My musings were superfluous and serious as well. But now the words dance with me. I sing with them and we create poetry.
If the portraits of our absent friends are pleasant to us, which renew our memory of them and relieve our regret for their absence by a false and empty consolation, how much more pleasant are letters which bring us the written characters of the absent friend.
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!And yet they seem alive and quiveringAgainst my tremulous hands which loose the stringAnd let them drop down on my knee to-night.This said, -- he wished to have me in his sightOnce, as a friend: this fixed a day in springTo come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,Yet I wept for it! -- this, ... the paper's light ...Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailedAs if God's future thundered on my past.This said, I am thine -- and so its ink has paledWith lying at my heart that beat too fast.And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availedIf, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Other letters simply relate the small events that punctuate the passage of time: roses picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest. A couple of lines or eight pages, a Middle Eastern stamp or a suburban postmark . . . I hoard all these letters like treasure. One day I hope to fasten them end to end in a half-mile streamer, to float in the wind like a banner raised to the glory of friendship. It will keep the vultures at bay.
First 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.
Think not of the fragility of life, but of the power of books, when mere words can change our lives simply by being next to each other.
In a man's letters, you know, madam, his soul lies naked. His letters are only the mirror of his heart. Whatever passes within him is there shown undisguised in its natural progress; nothing is invented, nothing distorted; you see systems in their elements, you discover action in their motives. Samuel Johnson to Mrs. Thrale (1777)
Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.
They say no one reads anymore, but I find that's not the case. Prisoners read. I guess they're not given much access to computers. A felicitous injustice for me. The nicest reader letters I've received– also the only reader letters I've received– have come from prisoners. Maybe we're all prisoners? In our lives, our habits, our relationships?
Intelligence reports and local folklore together perpetuated tales of his bloody adventures across the rim worlds and badlands of Terran space. It was his trademark and often over the last two decades, history proclaimed in large bloody letters that ‘Kilroy woz ‘ere.
I haven’t written you a poem in years it seems.How can it be my faultwhen the words to describe you have not yet been created?When the alphabet lacks the very letters?How can it be my fault when your loveliness only growsby the time I reach for pen and paper?Tell me how I am at faultwhen I am only a beginner in poemsand you are exquisite poetry?To write you in words is to put a veil upon you.Why must I writewhen I can kiss you instead?
Every line, every word was -- in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would forbid -- a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in town was -- in the same language -- a thunderbolt. -- Thunderbolts and daggers! -- what a reproof would she have given me! -- her taste, her opinions -- I believe they are better known to me than my own, -- and I am sure they are dearer.
A poetess is not as selfishas you assume.After months of agonising over her marriage of words—the bride—and spaces—the groom,she knows that as soonas she has penned the poem,it’s yours to consume.So, without giving it a think,she blows on the inkand the letters fly awaylike dandelions on a windy day,landing on hands and lips, on hearts and hips.But more often than not,you can easily spotthem trodden and forgotten,becoming sodden and rotten.Yet, she will continue to makewhat’s others to takebecause selfishness is not the mark of a poetess.
[Letter to William Ward, 11 July 1878]Dear Boy, Why don’t you write to me? I don’t know what has become of you.As for me I am ruined. The law suit is going against me and I am afraid I will have to pay costs, which means leaving Oxford and doing some horrid work to earn bread. The world is too much for me.However, I have seen Greece and had some golden days of youth. I go back to Oxford immediately for viva voce and then think of rowing up the river to town with Frank Miles. Will you come? YoursOscar
They say instant communication is not communication at all but merely a frantic, trivial, nerve-wracking bombardment of clichés, threats, fads, fashions, gibberish and advertising. However, who has not hung on a scripture, a quote, a statement, only to stumble upon the key phrase that brought all things to a turning point? The greatest sermons and speeches were pieced together by illuminating thoughts that powered men to surpass their own commonness. It is the sparkling magic of letters forming words, and those words colliding with passion, that makes statements into wisdom.
If I do depart this world out here, let it be known that I went out grinning will you, and loving it. LOVING IT.Steve, are you listening ? I FEEL GREAT. Life’s so joyous, so sad, so ephemeral, so crazy, so meaningless, so goddamn funny. This is paradise, and I wish I could give you some.
An isolated person requires correspondence as a means of seeing his ideas as others see them, and thus guarding against the dogmatisms and extravagances of solitary and uncorrected speculation. No man can learn to reason and appraise from a mere perusal of the writing of others. If he live not in the world, where he can observe the public at first hand and be directed toward solid reality by the force of conversation and spoken debate, then he must sharpen his discrimination and regulate his perceptive balance by an equivalent exchange of ideas in epistolary form.
I write letters to you that you’ll never see.
The fact about contemporaries is that they're doing the same thing on another railway line: one resents their distracting one, flashing past, the wrong way- something like that: from timidity, partly, one keeps one's eyes on one's own road.
My friend Oscar is one of those princes without kingdom who wander around hoping you'll kiss them so they won't turn into frogs. He gets everything back to front and that's why I like him. People who think they get everything right do things wrong, and this, coming from a left-handed person, says it all. He looks at me and thinks I don't see him. he imagines I'll evaporate if he touches me and if he doesn't touch me, then he'll evaporate. He's got me on such a high pedestal he doesn't know how to get up there. He thinks my lips are door to paradise, but doesn't know they are poisoned. I am such a coward that I don't tell him so as not to lose him. I pretend I don't see him, and that I am, indeed, going to evaporate...My friend Oscar is one of those princes who would be well advised to stay away from fairy tales and the princesses who inhabit them. He doesn't know he's really Prince Charming who must kiss Sleeping Beauty in order to wake her from her eternal sleep, but that's because Oscar doesn't know that fairy tales are lies, although not all lies are fairy tales. Princes aren't charming, and sleeping beauties, however beautiful, never wake up from their sleep. He's the best friend I've ever had and if I ever come across Merlin, I'll thank him for having placed him in my path.
Dear Camryn, I know you're scared. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little scared, too, but I have to believe that this time around everything will be fine. And it will be. We've been through so much together. More than most people in such a short time. But no matter what, the one thing that has never changed is that we're still together. Death couldn't take me away from you. Weakness couldn't make me look at you in a bad light. Drugs and all the shit that comes with them couldn't take you away from me. I think it's more safe to say that we're indestructable. Maybe all of this has been a test. Yeah, I think about that a lot and I've convinced myself of it. A lot of people take Fate for granted. Some have everything they've ever wanted right at their fingertips, but they abuse it. Others walk right past their only opportunity because they never open their eyes long enough to see that it's there. But you and I, even before we met, took all the risks, made our own decisions without listening to everybody around us telling us, in so many ways, that what we're doing is wrong. Hell no, we did it our way, no matter how reckless, or crazy or unconventional. It's like the more we pushed and the more we fought, the harder the obstacles. Because we had to prove we were the real deal. And I know we've done just that. Camryn, I want you to read this letter to yourself once a week. It doesn't matter what day or what time, just read it. Every time you open it, I want you to see that another week has passed and you're still pregnant. That I'm still in good health. That we're still together. I want you to think about the three of us, you, me and our son or daughter, traveling Europe and Soth America. Because we're going to do it. I promise you that. You're everything to me, and I want you to stay strong and not let your fear of the past taint the path to our future. Everything will work out this time, Camryn, everything will, I swear to you. Just trust me. Until next week... Love, Andrew
Winter arrived with December, and the world continued to suffer the loss of the Internet and most forms of communication. Supply chains were disrupted. The only mass form of personal communication was the letter, and postal workers were having their worst year ever, as they were actually meeded. Food was becoming scarcer and more expensive, as was fuel for vehicles and heating. Major cities experienced riots on a regular basis, spurred on by religious fervor and want. Civilization was on the brink of collapse.
I don't get as much fan mail as an actor or singer would, but when I get a letter 99% of the time it's pointing out something that really had an impact. Like after 'My Own Private Rodeo' all these people wrote to me and said Dale's dad inspired them to come out. And this was when it was still illegal to be gay in Texas and a few other states. Another one that really stuck with me was this girl who survived Columbine. See, "Wings of the Dope," the episode where Luanne's boyfriend comes back as an angel, aired two weeks after the shooting. About a month after that, I got a letter from a girl who was there and hid somewhere in the school when it was all going on. She said the first thing she was gonna do if she survived was tell a friend of hers she was in love with him. She never did. He ended up being one of the kids responsible for it. So you can imagine how - you know, to her, it felt wrong to grieve almost, and she bottled it up. But she saw that episode and Buckley walking away at the end and something just let her finally break down and greive and miss the guy. I remember she quoted Luanne - 'I wonder if he's guardianing some other girl,' or something along that line, because she never had the guts to tell the kid. That really gets to people at Comic Con.
For the broken hearts,I promise it gets better.I promise that the minutes and hours will go by faster and that the ache in your chest will stop.I promise that the day you can forgive and realize that you don't have to feel this way will come.I promise you that right now, no matter what age you are, it will hurt. But pain is temporary.I promise that months or even years from now you'll look back and realize how silly you're acting. Although it doesn't feel silly.I promise that your relationship with them may or may not bloom into at least a friendship.I promise it'll stop hurting. Give it time, give yourself time to be an individual again. Find the confidence to do things on your own. Reconnect with the friends you pushed away. Form a better self. Be selfish. Stop thinking about their opinion.xoxoxo, M
You know that when your partner deletes their messages to a past lover after being accused of cheating, then it is likely that they were being unfaithful in some way.
What's this one, Mum? There's no return address, and there's like, five stamps on it. Who's it from?"Leaning forward to get a closer look at the stamps, I didn't notice the fleeting look of immense sadness pass over her face."Oh it's nothing, darling."I raised my eyebrow at her. She sighed."An overseas friend. You wouldn't know her."And before I could ask what 'her' name was, Mum had left the room.
But writing is a queer business. If one does anything that is sharp and keep enough to go over the line, to get itself with the work that is taken seriously, one has to have had either an unusual knowledge of or a peculiar sympathy with the characters one handles. One can’t write about what one most admires always—you must, by some accident, have seen into your character very deeply, and it is this accident of intense realization of him that give your writing about him tone and distinction, that lifts it above the commonplace, in other words
But as to your writing me that I don’t love you very much, I don’t know whether you’re saying this in earnest or whether I should realise that you’re joking with me. Still, what you say disturbs me. You are measuring a very healthy expression of a wife’s loyalty by the standard of the insincere flattery of well-worn phrases. But I shall love you, my husband. What does it mean to you that you reassure me with those trivial little compliments? Do you want me to believe that you expect me to comb my hair in a stylish fashion for your homecoming? Or to feign adoring looks with a painted face? Let women without means, who worry and have no confidence in their virtue, flutter their eyelashes and play games to gain favour with their husbands. This is the adulation of a fox and the birdlime of deceitful bird hunting. I don’t want to have to buy you at such a price. I’m not a person who lays more stock in words than duty. I am truly your Laura, whose soul is the same one you in turn had hoped for.
Had I only known my lettersWould be of such importanceI’d empty myself on paperEvery single morning’And it was for such reason,as she read his little stanza,that she decided to stamponefinalletter:‘Every single morningI’d empty myself on paperYou were my greater importanceThat’s why I wrote you letters.
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.
I should have written you a letter, it was too late to make the deaths of my brothers an excuse. Since they died, I wrote a book; why not a letter? A mysterious but truthful answer is that while I can gear myself up to do a novel, letters, real-life communications, are too much for me. I used to rattle them off easily enough; why is the challenge of writing to friends and acquaintances too much for me now? Because I have become such a solitary, and not in the Aristotelian sense: not a beast, not a god. Rather, a loner troubled by longings, incapable of finding a suitable language and despairing at the impossibility of composing messages in a playable key--as if I no longer understood the codes used by the estimable people who wanted to hear from me and would have so much to reply if only the impediments were taken away.
Working for OSHA is a horrible job to have. You have to ignore the whistle blowers and send them illegal letters saying that you cannot find any problems. I have a lot of those fraudulent letters, as I have been through OSHA twice. Once as the utility company employee and once as the utility company subcontractor employee. It is a disgusting & blatently corrupt system.
Her breast is fit for pearls,But I was not a "Diver" - Her brow is fit for thronesBut I have not a crest,Her heart is fit for home-I- a Sparrow- build thereSweet of twigs and twineMy perennial nest.
It's my letter," she began. "I cannot make it right.""Come in, come in," the Prince said gently. "Maybe we can help you." She sat down in the same chair as before. "All right, I'll close my eyes and listen; read to me."" 'Westley, my passion, my sweet, my only, my own. Come back, come back. I shall kill myself otherwise. Yours in torment, Buttercup.' " She looked at Humperdinck. "Well? Do you think I'm throwing myself at him?""It does seem a bit forward," the Prince admitted. "It doesn't leave him a great deal of room to maneuver.
Dearest Jessamin,I have not had a letter from you in a month. (You are a terrible daughter.) I blame the slowness of the boats and hate the distance between us. (How could you leave me?)Your cousin Jacabo responded to my inquiries after your well-being with only the vaguest of terms. (I threatened Jacky Boy if he did not update me on your life.) I take this to mean you have seen him regularly and have also forbidden him from updating me on your life in the big city. (Why are you spending your time with him when he is clearly not running in the right circles?)How are your studies? Have you met anyone interesting? (Why have you not given me news of your father?)I suspect you do not write because you have found someone. (Please, please tell me you have found someone.) I know it. (I beg the spirits for it each night.) A mother can feel these things. (I will drag you back to the island and force you into marriage if you do not take care of it yourself.) Please tell me whether he is of a good family and when I can expect happy tidings to share with my friends. (Do not do anything I cannot crow about to the neighbors.) I knew you would not be on your own for long. (Give me grandchildren. Soon.) Dear Henry has asked after you, though, so if you are lonely you know you have many options here. (I pestered Henry until he finally asked after you and took it as a sign he still wishes to marry you.)Write me soon or I will perish for want of daughterly affection. (You are a terrible daughter.)All my love, (All my love,)Mama
And in this moment of pale dawn in the hours before we leave California, I finally realize what has been the hardest thing for me about Matt’s death. It isn’t that I lost a brother, like Frankie, or a son, like Aunt Jayne and Uncle Red. The hardest thing is that I’ll never know exactly what I lost, how much it should hurt, how long I should keep thinking about him. He took that mystery with him when he died, and a hundred thousand one-sided letters in my journal wouldn’t have brought me any closer to the truth than I was the night I pressed my fingers to the sea glass he wore around his neck and kissed him back. For over a year, the letters were my only connection to him; the only evidence that I didn’t imagine our brief time as other. When I first saw my journal helplessly floating on the waves, I felt a loss so immediate and overwhelming it was like being back in the hospital lobby when the doctor told us they couldn’t fix him. One minute, the journal was in my hands, soft and familiar and real; the next minute, it was gone. Just like Matt. And just like Matt, I need to let it go.
Postman’s bag is always heavy because it carries the life itself: It carries all the sorrows and all the joys, all the worries and all the hopes!
Don't you believe I love you? Don't know how I can make you believe. I didn't want to kiss you goodbye--that was the trouble--I wanted to kiss you goodnight. […] Of course I love you. I love you all the time. […] I'd like to hold you and kiss you so that you wouldn't doubt whether I wanted to or not.
My dearest Mary,Both my words and my conduct at our last meeting were ungentlemanly - born of haste and high emotion, rather than friendship and good judgement - and yet I cannot find it within me to apologize. I am glad I kissed you; glad to have revelled in your scent, your taste, the touch of your hands; glad, even, to have quarrelled with you because during those moments of anger, I was in your presence.Mary, you are the most singular woman I know: intelligent, brave and honest, and I crave your friendship. I confess to only the haziest notion of what I ask, having never been friends with a woman before. My friendships are male and conventional; pleasant and without distinction. But a friendship with you would be a bright, new, rare thing - if you would do me the honour.I expect that what I ask is impossible. But it is sweet to dream, Mary, and thus I tender one last, insolent, unapologetic request: write to me only if you can say yes.Yours,James
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.
I’ve wanted everything in my life to change for so long, and when it’s finally about to, my urge to escape slows down. I think that’s why people stay unhappy for so long, you know? Miserable or not, it’s easier to stick with what’s familiar. Do you notice that, too? How all of us just want to get through life as quickly and as easily as possible? And even though we know that without risk there’s no reward, we’re still so scared to chance it?
Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world that I clamour for you. You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination-- the most powerful in the world.
...How I adore you and want you. You can't know how much...I love belonging to you-- I glory in it, that you alone have bent me to your will, shattered my self-possession, robbed me of my mystery, and made me yours, so that away from you I am nothing but a useless puppet, an empty husk.
I am in no mood to fulminate on paper--I wish the two of us were in a room together talking of what matters most, the air thick with affinity. In January a man crawls into a cave of hopelessness; he hallucinates sympathies catching fire. Letters are glaciers, null frigates, trapping us where we are in the moment, unable to carry us on toward truth.
King Drowden has given his men instructions to infiltrate the town, bribe townspeople for the secrets of their neighbors, steal the neighbors’ hidden treasures. Much more subtle than Drowden’s usual smash and burn technique. We do hope Drowden isn’t growing a brain.
How are you going do your writings? How can the others understand you through words describing places, sensations, thoughts, feelings, hope, love, separations on a maze of phrases and paragraphs cemented with your ability to 'knit' your story? Maybe, 'how' is more relevant to provide for your readers a consistent path to build a story from the beginning to the end than 'what' and 'why'. Of course, you are not going to dismiss them. These ones – 'what' and 'why' –, they are pretty damn good too.
He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thoughts allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face.