Simone

Dear Valeria,

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

Best,

Simone Signoret

Émile

Dear Valeria,

I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don't care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation.

Kind Regards,

Émile Zola

Miles

Dear Valeria, 

I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it.

Best,

Miles Davis

Sylvia

Dear Valeria,

I haven't described our Co-operative home to you. It is built round a square garden and there is another garden round it. There is also a garden on the roof. The dining- room and kitchen are on the top floor. The school nursery, crèche, and children's garden is at the end of the block of buildings. There are a tennis court, croquet lawn, a hall for meetings, concerts, dances, and so on, a sewing room, workshops for all sorts of crafts, a library and gymnasium, and two big summer houses in the garden, one of which is for the older children.

Peace, sister,

Sylvia Pankhurst

Anna

Cara Valeria,

I would always say to my make-up artists: 'don't cover my wrinkles, it took me a whole life to earn them'.

Ciao,

Anna Magnani

Marion

Dear Valeria,

He was no Sunlord, but his face was honest and kind. She could hardly imagine a God speaking through him, but at least what he said would not be cruel or capricious. Agamemnon had been no worse than Poseidon, Paris had set Troy aflame at the bidding of a Goddess more cruel and capricious than any man. The worst of men, in her lifetime, had been no worse than the best of Gods, and what evil they had done, they had done at the bidding of Gods made in their own image.

Best Regards,

Marion Zimmer Bradley

Theodor

Dear Valeria,

It's a Truffula Seed.
It's the last one of all!
You're in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.
And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.
Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax
and all of his friends
may come back.

Very warmest regards,

Theodor "Dr." Seuss Geisel

Robert

Dear Valeria,

Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.

Sweet dreams,

Robert Albert Bloch

Dōgen

Dear Valeria,

Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.
A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
     Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs.

Yours,

Dōgen Zenji

Publius

Valeriae,

Mel: Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena;
nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arva.
nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.
Tit: O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit.
namque erit ille mihi semper deus, illius aram
saepe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus.
ille meas errare boves, ut cernis, et ipsum …

Ave atque Vale,

Publius Vergilius Maro

Jacob

Liebe Valeria,

And when the baker had plastered his feet, he ran to the miller. 'Miller,' he said, 'strew me some white meal over my paws.' But the miller refused, thinking the wolf must be meaning to harm someone. 'If you don't do it,' cried the wolf, 'I'll eat you up!' And the miller was afraid and did as he was told. And that just shows what men are.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Jacob Grimm

Italo

Carissima Valeria,

Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined?

con affetto,

Italo Calvino

Jimi

Dear Valeria,

Definitely music has meaning, and it's getting more spiritual. Pretty soon I believe people will have to rely on music to get some kind of peace of mind, or satisfaction, or direction, actually. More so than politics, the big ego scene. You know it's an art of words... Meaning nothing. Therefore you will have to get an earthier substance, like music or the arts.

Peace and love,

Jimi Marshall Hendrix

Hildegard

Dear Valeria,

But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'

Best regards,

Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard

Dear Ualueria,

O orzchis Ecclesia, armis divinis praecincta, et hyacinto ornata, tu es caldemia stigmatum loifolum et urbs scienciarum. O, o tu es etiam crizanta in alto sono, et es chorzta gemma.

your amica ignota

Hildegard von Bingen

Anne

Dear Valeria,

New England:

Alas, dear Mother, fairest Queen and best,
With honour, wealth, and peace happy and blest,
What ails thee hang thy head, and cross thine arms,
And sit i' the dust to sigh these sad alarms?
What deluge of new woes thus over-whelm
The glories of thy ever famous Realm?
What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise?
Ah, tell thy Daughter; she may sympathize.

Old England:

Art ignorant indeed of these my woes,
Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose,
And must my self dissect my tatter'd state,
Which Amazed Christendom stands wondering at?
And thou a child, a Limb, and dost not feel
My weak'ned fainting body now to reel?

Regards,

Anne Bradstreet

Thomas

Dear Valeria, 

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, [...] back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

Big hug,

Thomas Wolfe

Giovanni

Cara Valeria,

Yours,

Giovanni Domenico Cassini

Sajjad

Dear Valeria,

But Sheila was feeling that tonight those ruins were not desolate, but peopled once again. She knew that this was a story which must come to an end. She understood that the real world was a different one. But at this moment it was Naim, this room, her present life, which seemed superficial and unreal. She was thinking that only that night was real.

Best Regards,

Sajjad Zaheer

Ix

Hello Valeria,

Greetings and blessings,

Ix Sak K'uk', Queen of B'aakal.

Beatrice

Cara Valeria,

is freeing yourself from injustice a crime or justice?

your affectionate Roman friend,

Beatrice Cenci

Mary

Dear Valeria,

A good tragedy or novel, if the criterion be the effect which it has on the reader, is not always the most moral work, for it is not the reveries of sentiment, but the struggles of passion — of those human passions, that too frequently cloud the reason, and lead mortals into dangerous errors which raise the most lively emotions, and leave the most lasting impression on the memory; an impression rather made by the heart than the understanding: for our affections are not quite voluntary as the suffrages of reason.

Very best regards,

Mary Wollstonecraft

Anna

Dear Valeria,

Yours,


Anna Jagiellon, Queen of Poland, Grand Duchess of Lithuania

Alexandra

Cher Valeria,

Dans cette petite chambre, des appels muets s’échappent des pages que l’on feuillette. L’Inde, la Chine, le Japon, tous les points de ce monde qui commence au-delà de Suez sollicitent les lecteurs... Des vocations naissent... la mienne y est née.
Tel était le musée Guimet quand j’avais vingt ans.

bon voyage,

Alexandra David-Néel 

Jean

Dear Valeria,

The historical record also reveals that the only periods during which the concentration of wealth has been halted or reversed are years following sustained political contestation — i.e. mass social movements.

Best regards,

Jean Anyon

Robert

Gentilissima Valeria,

Un saluto dal Mare Arcano,

Robert Dudley

Fritz

Dear Valeria,

Consider the age in which we live. It wants magicians…. A scientist tells people the truth. When times are good—that is, when the truth offers no threat—people don't mind … A magician, on the other hand, tells people what they wish were true—that perpetual motion works, that cancer can be cured by colored lights, that a psychosis is no worse than a head cold, that they'll live forever. In good times magicians are laughed at. They're a luxury of the spoiled wealthy few. But in bad times people sell their souls for magic cures and buy perpetual-motion machines to power their war rockets.

Regards,

Fritz Leiber

Charles

Chère Valeria,

Une revue n’est vivante que si elle mécontente chaque fois un bon cinquième de ses abonnés. La justice consiste seulement à ce que ce ne soient pas toujours les mêmes qui soient dans le cinquième. Autrement, je veux dire quand on s’applique à ne mécontenter personne, on tombe dans le système de ces énormes revues qui perdent des millions, ou qui en gagnent, pour ne rien dire, ou plutôt à ne rien dire.

Salutations,

Charles Pierre Péguy

Louis

Dear Valeria

Suspended in a moving night
The face in the reflection train
Looks at first sight as self-assured
As your own face - But look again:

Windows between you and the world
Keep out the cold, keep out the fright;
Then why does your reflection seem

So lonely in the moving night?

Louis MacNeice

John

Dear Valeria,

Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
               Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.

Yours sincerely,

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

François

Dear Valeria,

We are, all of us, molded and remolded by those who have loved us, and though that love may pass, we remain none the less their work--a work that very likely they do not recognize, and which is never exactly what they intended.

Fondest regards,

François Mauriac