Samuel

Dear Valeria,

Ever tried. Ever failed. 
No matter. 
Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

Big hug,

Samuel Beckett

Carl

Dear Valeria,

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe,

Carl Sagan

Dorothy

Dear Valeria,

In reaction against the age-old slogan, "woman is the weaker vessel," or the still more offensive, "woman is a divine creature," we have, I think, allowed ourselves to drift into asserting that "a woman is as good as a man," without always pausing to think what exactly we mean by that. What, I feel, we ought to mean is something so obvious that it is apt to escape attention altogether, viz: (...) that a woman is just as much an ordinary human being as a man, with the same individual preferences, and with just as much right to the tastes and preferences of an individual. What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.

yours,

Dorothy L. Sayers

Frances

Dear Valeria,

I dare say you marvel sometimes at my independent way of walking through the world just as if nature had made me of your sex instead of poor Eve's. Trust me, my beloved friend, the mind has no sex but what habit and education give it, and I who was thrown in infancy upon the world like a wreck upon the waters have learned, as well to struggle with the elements as any male child of Adam.

Yours faithfully,

Frances Wright

Sōseki

Valeria San,

Nobody can be angry and write a Hokku at the same time. Likewise, if you are crying, express your tears in seventeen syllables and you feel happy. No sooner are your thoughts down on paper, than all connection between you and the pain which caused you to cry is severed, and your only feeling is one of happiness that you are a man capable of shedding tears.

sincerely,

Natsume Sōseki

Wolfgang Amadeus

Dear Valeria,

All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it.

Yours,

Edmond

Dear Valeria,

My heart always timidly hides itself behind my mind. I set out to bring down stars from the sky, then, for fear of ridicule, I stop and pick little flowers of eloquence.

Yours faithfully,

Edmond Rostand

Fernando

Dear Miss Valeria,

All I’ve ever done is dream. That, and only that, has been the meaning of my existence. The only thing I’ve ever really cared about is my inner life. My greatest griefs faded to nothing the moment I opened the window onto my inner self and lost myself in watching.
I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be.

Best Regards,

Fernando Pessoa

Sojourner

Dear Valeria,

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man — when I could get it — and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Yours sincerely,

Sojourner Truth

Roald

Nat

Dear Valeria,

And about this time I had a vision — and I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened — the thunder rolled in the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams — and I heard a voice saying, "Such is your luck, such you are called to see, and let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bear it."

May God be with you,

Nat Turner

Ivan

Dear Valeria,

It's dark. Not caring where I go, which path I follow,
Past sleepy ponds I stroll.
Of autumn freshness, leaves and fruit the fragrance mellow
Drifts over all.
The garden's almost bare, and through the branches whitely
The stars of evening show.
Dead silence reigns. Murk clothes the paths. It's nighttime.
My steps are slow.

They're slow, but wake the hush… High in the sky's cool
darkness,
A princely diadem,
The icy Pleiades blaze diamond-like and sparkle,
Each one a gem. 

Regards,

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin

Touko

Dear Valeria,

Yours,

Touko Laaksonen, Tom of Finland

Anita

Dear Valeria,

all the best,

Anita Malfatti

Nadia

Dear Valeria,

When night falls

the branch of my heart’s fantasy grows

innocent of itself

Facing the sky

it flies upward, infinitely

(If my hand reached the moon

If the night bought my relief from a star

If the sun did not rise…

I would cover the city of night with lights

to gaze forever, star-drunk…)

Oh, my dreaming heart

you drown my days

in fantasy

How long will this old woman of a heart

move like a girl?

Peace,

Nadia Anjuman

Olympe

Ma chère Valeria,

Homme, es-tu capable d’être juste ? C’est une femme qui t’en fait la question ; tu ne lui ôteras pas du moins ce droit. Dis-moi? Qui t’a donné le souverain empire d’opprimer mon sexe ? Ta force ? Tes talents ? Observe le créateur dans sa sagesse ; parcours la nature dans toute sa grandeur, dont tu sembles vouloir te rapprocher, et donne-moi, si tu l’oses, l’exemple de cet empire tyrannique.

Je vous prie, Mademoiselle, etc.,

Olympe de Gouges

Pier Paolo

Cara Valeria,

Why create a work of art when dreaming about it is so much sweeter?

un abbraccio,

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Theodor

Dear Valeria,

The belief that it is useless to employ partial and palliative means against radical evils, because they only remedy them in part, is an article of faith never preached unsuccessfully by meanness to simplicity, but it is none the less absurd.

Yours,

Theodor Mommsen

Marie

Dear Valeria,

I am in Rome, and it is very wonderful (ah! it is very wonderful, very marvellous). It is cold as Russia, the water freezes in the fountains, but the cold would be nothing if it was only the cold. Since morning we have been in search of an apartment, and we have seen only one. I did not have courage to go up when they pointed out a black, yawning hole, dirty and frightful. I have looked in vain for a house with any resemblance to the French houses. I find only ruins or cracked columns. No doubt it is very beautiful, but agree with me that a good, comfortable apartment is infinitely more pleasant, though less artistic.

Regards,

Marie Konstantinovna Bashkirtzeff

Joseph

Dear Valeria,

I know that my retirement will make no difference in my newspaper’s cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.

Yours sincerely,

Joseph Pullitzer

Raymond

Dear Valeria,

I don't know how long I stayed in that particular place my poor memory is not a chronometer nor a movie camera nor a phonograph nor any other sort of finely tuned machine. It's more like nature with holes empty spaces hidden nooks and crannies with rivers that trickle away so that you can never dip your foot in the same water twice and with patches of light and darkness.

your old friend,

Raymond Queneau 

Théophile

Dear Valeria,

All passes, art alone
Enduring stays to us;
The bust outlasts the throne, —
The coin, Tiberius.

yours,
Théophile Gautier

Isabelle

Dear Valeria,

A nomad I will remain for life, 
in love with distant and uncharted places.

wishing you the best trips,
Isabelle Eberhardt

Camille

Dear Valeria,

You find me at work; excuse the dust on my blouse. I sculpt my marble myself.

Regards,

Camille Claudel

Frédéric

Dear Valeria,

It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.

warmest regards,

Frédéric Chopin

Jean

Dear Valeria,

The most gentle regards,

Jean de Brunhoff (and Babar)

Margaretha

Dear Valeria,

My international connections are due to my work as a dancer, nothing else. Because I really did not spy, it is terrible that I cannot defend myself.

Yours,

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle
(stage name "Mata Hari")

Randall

Dear Valeria,

The Author to the Reader
I’ve read that Luther said (it’s come to me
So often that I’ve made it into meter):
And even if the world should end tomorrow
I still would plant my little apple-tree.
Here, reader, is my little apple-tree.

Kind regards,

Randall Jarrell

Antonio

Dear Valeria,

hope you'll enjoy the image of another Victrix.

Omaggi,

Antonio Canova

Anatole

Dear Valeria,

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.

yours,

Anatole France

Remedios

Querida Valeria,

Remedios Varo

Alfred

Dear Valeria,

I am a part of all that I have met.

Sincerely,

Alfred Tennyson

J.

Dear Valeria,

Only in my poems can I make my home.
I have found shelter in no other form.
There is no hearth I've pined for as my own. 
A tent could be uprooted in the storm.

Only in my poems can I make my home.
While I still know that I can find those doors
In wilderness, in woods, on streets or moors,
I fear no grief- no matter where I roam.

All the best,

Jan Jacob Slauerhoff

Janis

Dear Valeria,

If I hold back, I'm no good. I'm no good. 
I'd rather be good sometimes, than holding back all the time.

Rock it,

Janis Joplin

Ronnie

Dear Valeria,

I have to tell you that all through my fifty years in the business, two words have always been in my thoughts – these two words are 'What luck'. What luck to have met, in the far-off days of weekly rep, a marvellous comedian called Glenn Melvyn, who gave me my first TV job and taught me how to stutter. What luck to have been in Oxford rep when a young Peter Hall arrived as director and brought me to London's West End. What luck that James Gilbert saw me do a radio show and put me in The Frost Report. What luck that the star of that show, David Frost, put me under contract, that resulted in Porridge and Open All Hours, and who paired me with the wonderful Ronnie Corbett. What luck to have had a wife for forty-five years, who throughout my television career, sat in the audience of every show and laughed louder than anyone else. And finally, standing here before you, with this most honoured award bestowed upon me by you, what luck, what wonderful luck, to be flanked on either side by my two best friends, Ronnie Corbett and David Jason. And I might cry, Gwyneth Paltrow, watch out.

Goodnight!

Ronnie Barker

Chiyo-ni

Valeria-san,

morning glory!
the well bucket-entangled,
I ask for water

Respectfully yours,

Fukuda Chiyo-ni, Haiku Poetess

Petra

Dear Valeria,

The suffering people of this world must come together to take control of their lives, to wrest political power from their present masters pushing them towards destruction. The Earth has been mistreated and only by restoring a balance, only by living with the Earth, only by emphasising knowledge and expertise towards soft energies and soft technology for people and for life, can we overcome the patriarchal ego.

With love,

Petra Karin Kelly

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

Tabito

Dear Valeria,

Rather than
Speaking wise words,
Drinking wine,
Weeping drunkenly
That seems far better.

Kanpai!

Ōtomo no Tabito

Henri

Dear Valeria,

I went out on the street like an exile, I who am an everyday man, who resemble everybody else so much, too much. I went through the streets and crossed the squares with my eyes fixed upon things without seeing them. I was walking, but I seemed to be falling from dream to dream, from desire to desire. A door ajar, an open window gave me a pang. A woman passing by grazed against me, a woman who told me nothing of what she might have told me. I dreamed of her tragedy and of mine. She entered a house, she disappeared, she was dead.

Sincerely,

Henri Barbusse

Pina

Cara Valeria,

Baci,

Giuseppa Iolanda "Pina" Menichelli

Ruth

Dear Valeria,

Never give up.
And never, under any circumstances, face the facts.

Best wishes,

Ruth Gordon

Sotiria

Dear Valeria,



Με εκτίμηση,

Σωτηρία Μπέλλου

Irving

Dear Valeria,

There seemed to be that same fierce quest after truth, the same unafraid penetration, the same feeling that character is beauty, no matter how sordid it may appear.

Yours,

Irving Stone

Friedrich

Liebe Valeria,

To invent stories about a world other than this one has no meaning at all, unless an instinct of slander, belittling, and suspicion against life is strong in us: in that case, we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of another, a better life.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Friedrich Nietzsche

Simone

Dear Valeria,

One can never really give a proof of the reality of anything; reality is not something open to proof, it is something established. It is established just because proof is not enough. It is this characteristic of language, at once indispensable and inadequate, which shows the reality of the external world.

Best wishes,

Simone Weil

Jean

Chère Valeria,

On trouve aux champs pastoureaux sans brebis,
Clercs sans habits, prêtres sans bréviaire
Châteaux sans tours, granges sans fouragiz,
Bourgs sans logis, étables sans seulis,
Chambres sans lits, autels sans luminaire,
Murs sans parfaire, églises sans refaire,
Villes sans maire et cloîtres sans nonnettes
Guerre commet plusieurs faits deshonnêtes.

Vôtre,

Jean Molinet

Vladimir

Dear Vava,

We observe that, actually, the number of functions is quite limited. Only some 31 functions may be noted. The action of all tales included in our material develops within the limits of these functions. The same may also be said for the action of a great many other tales of the most dissimilar peoples. Further, if we read through all of the functions, one after another, we observe that one function develops out of another with logical and artistic necessity. We see that not a single function excludes another. They all belong to a single axis and not, as has already been mentioned, to a number of axes.

Kind regards,

Vladimir Propp

Mary

Dear Valeria,

Men, that have not sense enough to show any superiority in their arguments, hope to be yielded to by a faith that, as they are men, all the reason that has been allotted to human kind had fallen to their share.

I am seriously of another opinion.

Yours sincerely,

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Karla

Dear Vale,

“People always say to me
"What do you think you'd like to be
When you grow up?"
And I say, "Why,
I think I'd like to be the sky
Or be a plane or train or mouse
Or maybe a haunted house
Or something furry, rough and wild...
Or maybe I will stay a child.”

your affectionate,

Karla Kuskin

Gaius

Dear Valeria Victrix,

When the dictatorship was offered to me, both in my presence and my absence, by the people and senate, when Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius were consuls I did not accept it. I did not evade the curatorship of grain in the height of the food shortage, which I so arranged that within a few days I freed the entire city from the present fear and danger by my own expense and administration. When the annual and perpetual consulate was then again offered to me, I did not accept it.

Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus, gives greetings.

Nelly

Dear Valeria,

love,

Nelly

Charlotte

Dear Valeria

It is not that women are really smaller-minded, weaker-minded, more timid and vacillating, but that whosoever, man or woman, lives always in a small, dark place, is always guarded, protected, directed and restrained, will become inevitably narrowed and weakened by it.

Best regards,

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Bela

My sweet Valeria,

I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow.

Kisses,

Bela Lugosi

Macbeth

Dear Valeria,

Bring me no more reports; let them fly all:
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane
I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus,—
"Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
Shall e'er have power upon thee."—Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

Glory to ye,

Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, called Rí Deircc, King of Scotland

Bertolt

Dear Valeria,

Art is not a mirror held up to reality
but a hammer with which to shape it.

All the best,

Bertolt Brecht

Radegonde

Dear Valeria,

Oh, sad state of war, malevolent destiny
That fells proud kingdoms in a sudden slide!
The rooves that stood so long in happiness are broken
To lie fallen beneath the vast charred ruin.
The palace courts, where art once flouished
Are vaulted now with sad, glowing ashes.
Towers artfully gilded, then shone golden-red,
Now drifting ashes blur the glitter to pallor.

Yours,

Radegonde de Poitiers

William

Valeria,

I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create.

William Blake

Edith

Dear Valeria,

When Lily woke on the morning after her translation to the Emporium Hotel, her first feeling was one of purely physical satisfaction. The force of contrast gave an added keenness to the luxury of lying once more in a soft-pillowed bed, and looking across a spacious sunlit room at a breakfast-table set invitingly near the fire. Analysis and introspection might come later; but for the moment she was not even troubled by the excesses of the upholstery or the restless convolutions of the furniture. The sense of being once more lapped and folded in ease, as in some dense mild medium impenetrable to discomfort, effectually stilled the faintest note of criticism.

When, the afternoon before, she had presented herself to the lady to whom Carry Fisher had directed her, she had been conscious of entering a new world. Carry's vague presentment of Mrs. Norma Hatch (whose reversion to her Christian name was explained as the result of her latest divorce), left her

Yours,

Edith Wharton

Carlo

Cara Valeria,

love the toys you make,

Carlo Rambaldi

Irene

Dear Valeria,

Irene Sarantapechaina, of Athens, Empress of Byzantium

Shirley

Dear Valeria,

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

yours,

Shirley Jackson

Rabindranath

Dear Valeria,

Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?

Yours,

Rabindranath Tagore

Louis

Estimée Valéria,

Avec respet et honeur,

Louis III, Roi des Francs

Ernestine

Valeria, my dear sister

But it will be said that the husband provides for the wife, or in other words, he feeds, clothes and shelters her! I wish I had the power to make every one before me fully realize the degradation contained in that idea.

All my best wishes,

Ernestine Rose

Ingmar

Dear Valeria,

Sincerely,

Ernst Ingmar Bergman

Cyrano

My dear Valeria,

I will prove that there are infinite worlds in an infinite world. Imagine the universe as a great animal, and the stars as worlds like other animals inside it. These stars serve in turn as worlds for other organisms, such as ourselves, horses and elephants. We in our turn are worlds for even smaller organisms such as cankers, lice, worms and mites. And they are earths for other, imperceptible beings.
Just as we appear to be a huge world to these little organisms, perhaps our flesh, blood and bodily fluids are nothing more than a connected tissue of little animals that move and cause us to move. Even as they let themselves be led blindly by our will, which serves them as a vehicle, they animate us and combine to produce this action we call life.

sincerely,

Cyrano de Bergerac

Winsor

My little Vale,

Sweet dreams,

Winsor McCay

Samuel

Dear Valeria,

From my early reading of Faery Tales, & Genii — my mind had been habituated to the Vast — & I never regarded my senses in any way as the criteria of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by my conceptions not by my sight — even at that age. Should children be permitted to read Romances, & Relations of Giants & Magicians, & Genii? — I know all that has been said against it; but I have formed my faith in the affirmative. — I know no other way of giving the mind a love of "the Great," & "the Whole." — Those who have been led by the same truths step by step thro' the constant testimony of their senses, seem to me to want a sense which I possess — They contemplate nothing but parts — and are parts are necessarily little — and the Universe to them is but a mass of little things.

All the best,

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Ahmad

Dear Valeria,

They smell your mouth 
To find out if you have told someone: I love you! 
They smell your heart!

Such a strange time it is, my dear; 
And they punish Love 
At thoroughfares 
By flogging. 
We must hide our 
Love in dark closets. 
In this crooked dead end of a bitter cold 
They keep their fire alive 
By burning our songs and poems; 
Do not place your life in peril by your thoughts! 

Such a strange time it is, my dear! 

Warmest Regards.

Ahmad Shamloo

David

Dear Valeria,

There will never be talking pictures.

Sincerely,

D.W. Griffith

Errico

Cara Valeria,

By anarchist spirit I mean that deeply human sentiment, which aims at the good of all, freedom and justice for all, solidarity and love among the people; which is not an exclusive characteristic only of self-declared anarchists, but inspires all people who have a generous heart and an open mind.

yours,

Errico Malatesta

Arshile

Dear Valeria,

I don’t like that word 'finish'. When something is finished, that means it’s dead, doesn’t it? I believe in everlastingness. I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while. I like painting because it’s something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I’m working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often. The thing to do is always to keep starting to paint, never finishing painting.

Best regards,

Arshile Gorsky

Paul

Dear Valeria,

Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.

Paul Valéry

Francesco

Carissima Valeria,

Aura che quelle chiome bionde et crespe
cercondi et movi, et se’ mossa da loro,
soavemente, et spargi quel dolce oro,
et poi ’l raccogli, e ’n bei nodi il rincrespe,

tu stai nelli occhi ond’amorose vespe
mi pungon sí, che ’nfin qua il sento et ploro,
et vacillando cerco il mio thesoro,
come animal che spesso adombre e ’ncespe:

ch’or me ’l par ritrovar, et or m’accorgo
ch’i’ ne son lunge, or mi sollievo or caggio,
ch’or quel ch’i’ bramo, or quel ch’è vero scorgo.

Aër felice, col bel vivo raggio
rimanti; et tu corrente et chiaro gorgo,
ché non poss’io cangiar teco vïaggio?

Con affetto,

Francesco Petrarca

Michelangelo

Diletta Valeria,

Tuo affezionato,

Michelangelo Merisi detto il Caravaggio

Charlotte

Ma chère Valéria,

J’ai vengé bien d’innocentes victimes, j’ai prévenu bien d’autres désastres. Le peuple, un jour désabusé, se réjouira d’être délivré d’un tyran. Un tel attentat ne permet nulle défense, c’est pour la forme. Adieu, je vous prie de vous réjouir de mon sort, la cause en est belle. N’oubliez pas ce vers de Corneille :

Le Crime fait la honte, et non pas l’échafaud!

Au revoir.

Marie Charlotte Corday

Vyacheslav

Dear Valeria,

Dionysus walks his vineyard, his beloved;
Two women in dark clothing - two vintagers - follow him.
Dionysus tells the two mournful guards - The vintagers:
"Take your sharp knife, my vintners, Grief and Torment;
Harvest, Grief and Torment, my beloved grapes!
Gather the blood of scarlet bunches, the tears of my golden clusters -
Take the victim of bliss to the whetstone of grief,
The purple of suffering to the whetstone of bliss;
Pour the fervent liquid of scarlet delights into my ardent Grail!

Yours,

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov

Rosalia

Dear Valeria,

Goose pimples spread
Over my entire body
And the hairs on my crown
Gradually bristled;
Drops of sweat trickled
Steadily down my bosom
And I quivered as quivers
The water when the wind blows
Upon the bowl of the new fountain
Which is always overflowing.
That little owl abiding there
As if it were the very devil
Stared hard at me
With its scavenging eyes
(I surmised these preyed on me
From the moment I spied them afar).
They seemed born of fire to me
And I suppose that they burned me;
I suppose they were crimson firebrands
From hells' bonfire
Which entered through my pupils
And went straight to the heart.
In it was remorse
Of illicit sweet loves...
Ah, whoever has such loves
Can not find good repose!

Kindest regards,

Rosalía De Castro

Phyllis

Dear Valeria,

You don't go after poetry, you take what comes. Maybe the gods do it through me but I certainly do a hell of a lot of the work.

...but on the other hand...

Popular literature had been creeping into poetry, fantasy, children's rhymes, song lyrics, and eventually it all got absorbed into my science fiction, and by the end of the seventies (just about the time the great outburst of interest in poetry began to shrink) I stopped being a productive poet simply from lack of poem-shaped ideas. Now my aliens write poems, and I produce them very occasionally. I miss them, but if I tried to force them I'd produce only empty stuff.

Yours sincerely,

Phyllis Gotlieb

Marie

Dear Valeria,

When I read these writings by men, I suspect that they see more clearly the anatomy of their beards than they see the anatomy of their reasons. These tracts of contempt written by these doctors in moustaches are in fact quite handy to brush up the luster of their reputation in public opinion, since to gain esteem from the masses—this beast at several heads— nothing is easier than to mock so and so and to compare them to a poor crazy woman.

Salutations et solidarité,

Maria Le Jars de Gournay

Gertrude

Dear Valeria,

Have I ever told you what the river is like on a hot summer night? At dusk the mist hangs in long white bands over the water; the twilight fades and the lights of the town shine out on either bank, with the river, dark and smooth and full of mysterious reflections, like a road of triumph through the midst.

love from Baghdad,

Gertrude Bell

Giuseppe

Cara Valeria,

con affetto,

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Ruth

Dear Valeria,

best wishes,

Ruth Krauss

PS: the drawing is by my dear friend Maurice Sendak

Anastasius

Greetings, Valeria,

Richest regards,

Flavius Anastasius Augustus, said Dicorus

Percy

Valeria, my darling

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

Yours sincerely,

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mia

Yo! Valeria,

You lose your head on your chosen trip
The sight of your blood will lose your spit
And a broken heart will turn to sin but when
the wound is open you’re all the fuckin’ same
Cut my skin it makes me human
Scorn your mind well just feel the blow
Cause when you’re lookin at pain you’re lookin at truth
Nothin’ like pain to keep us all the same
Cut my skin, it makes me human
Scorn your mind just feel the pain
’cause it’s what makes us human
It keeps us all the same

Don't stop breathing, sister,

Mia Zapata

Guy

Dear Valeria,

I love the night passionately. I love it as I love my country, or my mistress, with an instinctive, deep, and unshakeable love. I love it with all my senses: I love to see it, I love to breathe it in, I love to open my ears to its silence, I love my whole body to be caressed by its blackness. Skylarks sing in the sunshine, the blue sky, the warm air, in the fresh morning light. The owl flies by night, a dark shadow passing through the darkness; he hoots his sinister, quivering hoot, as though he delights in the intoxicating black immensity of space.

Best,

Guy the Maupassant

Victor

Chère Valérie,

Allez, allez, mes chers amis
Faites retentir l’air de vos chants d’allégresse !
Semez aux pieds de la déesse
Les roses et les lys !
Courez en foule vers son temple ! courez !
Moi, Dieu merci !
Je suis ici,
Trop mollement couché pour suivre votre exemple !

A toujours,

Victor Massé

Marie

Dear Valeria,

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

Best,

Marie Curie

Taoyateduta

Listen Valeria,

Taoyateduta is not a coward, and he is not a fool! When did he run away from his enemies? When did he leave his braves behind him on the warpath and turn back to his tepee? When he ran away from your enemies, he walked behind on your trail with his face to the Ojibways and covered your backs as a she-bear covers her cubs!

Is Taoyateduta without scalps? Look at his war feathers! Behold the scalp locks of your enemies hanging there on his lodgepoles! Do they call him a coward? Taoyateduta is not a coward, and he is not a fool.

Braves, you are like little children: you know not what you are doing. You are full of the white man's devil water. You are like dogs in the Hot Moon when they run mad and snap at their own shadows. We are only little herds of buffalo left scattered; the great herds that once covered the prairies are no more.

See! — the white men are like the locusts when they fly so thick that the whole sky is a snowstorm. You may kill one — two — ten; yes, as many as the leaves in the forest yonder, and their brothers will not miss them. Kill one — two — ten, and ten times ten will come to kill you. Count your fingers all day long and white men with guns in their hands will come faster than you can count.

Yes; they fight among themselves — aways off. Do you hear the thunder of their big guns? No; it would take you two moons to run down to where they are fighting, and all the way your path would be among white soldiers as thick as tamaracks in the swamps of the Ojibways. Yes; they fight among themselves, but if you strike at them they will all turn on you and devour you and your women and little children just as the locusts in their time fall on the trees and devour all the leaves in one day.

You are fools. You cannot see the face of your chief; your eyes are full of smoke. You cannot hear his voice; your ears are full of roaring waters. Braves, you are little children — you are fools. You will die like the rabbits when the hungry wolves hunt them in the Hard Moon.

Taoyateduta is not a coward; he will die with you.

Yours,

Taoyateduta, "Little Crow" of the Mdewakanton Dakota Sioux

Jean-Jaques

Dear Valeria,

Our passions are the chief means of self-preservation; to try to destroy them is therefore as absurd as it is useless.

Yours,

Jean-Jaques Rousseau

Mikhail

Zdravstvoujte, Comrade Valeria,

I can feel free only in the presence of and in relationship with other humans. In the presence of an inferior species of animal I am neither free nor a man, because this animal is incapable of conceiving and consequently recognizing my humanity. I am not myself free or human until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my fellowmen. Only in respecting their human character do I respect my own. I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation.

С уважением,

Mikhail Bakunin

Eden

Dear Valeria,

"Yes, sir, and the only thing that made me feel sorry was to see what a fool I had been not to turn to a boy before, when it was so easy! And from that day forth I was happy and prosperous! I found plenty to do! I carried carpet-bags, held horses, put in coal, cleaned sidewalks, blacked gentlemen's boots and did everything an honest lad could turn his hand to. And so for more'n a year I was as happy as a king, and should have kept on so, only I forgot and let my hair grow; and instead of cutting it off, just tucked it up under my cap; and so this morning on the ferry-boat, in a high breeze, the wind blowed off my cap and the policeman blowed on me!"

All best,

E.D.E.N. (Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte) Southworth

Elizabeth

Dear Valeria,

Of writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,—
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.

Best regards,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Alexandros

Dear Valeria,

Μαύρ’ είν’ η νύκτα στα βουνά,
στους βράχους πέφτει χιόνι.
Μες στ’ άγρια, στα σκοτεινά,
στες τραχιές πέτρες, στα στενά,
ο κλέφτης ξεσπαθώνει.

Στο δεξί χέρι το γυμνό
βαστά αστροπελέκι.
Παλάτι έχει το βουνό
και σκέπασμα τον ουρανό,
κ’ ελπίδα το τουφέκι.

Φεύγουν οι τύραννοι χλωμοί
το μαύρο του μαχαίρι·
μ’ ιδρώτα βρέχει το ψωμί,
ξέρει να ζήσει με τιμή,
και να πεθάνει ξέρει.

Τον κόσμ’ ο δόλος διοικεί
κι η άδικ’ ειμαρμένη.
Τα πλούτη έχουν οι κακοί,
κι εδώ στους βράχους κατοικεί
η αρετή κρυμμένη.^*

Yours,

Alexandros Rizos Rangavis

Sophie

Dear Valeria,

It matters little who first arrives at an idea, rather what is significant is how far that idea can go.

Best,

Sophie Germain

Elaine

Dear Valeria,

What we are witnessing today is the result (but not the end-result) of a long process. The volume captures a good moment in the integration of new technologies in the conduct and dissemination of classical research, positioning us to enhance our capacity to reconstruct and understand the ancient classical world. There is so much going on on so many fronts, some of it with roots in the past, some coming in from complementary disciplines and altering our expectations of ourselves and our subject. It is like listening to a rumbling volcano—knowing that the 'eruptions' are changing the landscape.

Best regards,

Elaine Matthews