Derek

Dear Valeria,

But the wind does not stop for my thoughts. It whips across the flooded gravel pits drumming up waves on their waters that glint hard and metallic in the night, over the shingle, rustling the dead gorse and skeletal bugloss, running in rivulets through the parched grass — while I sit here in the dark holding a candle that throws my divided shadow across the room and gathers my thoughts to the flame like moths.

Best wishes,

Derek Jarman

Qubilai

Dear Valeria,

I ascended on Fragrant Hill in the friendly season of spring.
Not discouraged I climbed to the peak and met the Golden Face;
Flowers shone bright rays and auspicious colors gleamed like a rainbow,
Incense smoke wafted like mist and a blessed light emanated.

Raindrops were like bubbles on jade bamboos at the edge of the big rock;
The blowing wind played a song among the green pines at the mountain pass.
In front of the Buddha in the temple I conducted the incense ceremony,
And on the way back I rode a Blue Dragon in the royal carriage.

Yours,

Qubilai, known as Kublai Khan, 5th Emperor of all the Mongols

Giordano

Dear Valeria,

The universe is then one, infinite, immobile… It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile.

Regards,

Giordano Bruno

Angela

Dear Valeria,

I’m interested in the division that Judeo-Christianity has made between human nature and animal nature. None of the other great faiths in the world have got quite that division between us and them. None of the others has made this enormous division between birds and beasts who, as Darwin said, would have developed consciences if they’d had the chance, and us. I think it’s one of the scars in Western Europe. I think it’s one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.

Best regards,

Angela Carter

Ghalib

Dear Valeria,

The prison of life and the bondage of grief are one and the same
Before the onset of death, how can man expect to be free of grief?


Yours,

Ghalib
Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan

WIlliam

Dear Valeria,

All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer.

Yrs sincerely,

William Blackstone, KC SL.

Richard

Liebe Valeria,



Beste Grüße,

Richard Wagner

Anna

Dear Valeria,

Yours,

Anna Anderson
aka Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia
née Franziska Schanzkowska

Elizabeth

Dear Valeria,

And I admit it would be easier for me to concede matter and extension to the soul, than the capacity of moving a body and of being moved, to an immaterial being. For, if the first occurred through 'information; the spirits that perform the movement would have to be intelligent, which you accord to nothing corporeal. And although in your metaphysical meditations you show the possibility of the second, it is, however, very difficult to comprehend that a soul, as you have described it, after having had the faculty and habit of reasoning well, can lose all of it on account of some vapors, and that, although it can subsist without the body and has nothing in common with it, is yet so ruled by it.

Sincerely yours,

Elizabeth of the Palatinate, Princess of Bohemia

Bart

Dear Valeria,

In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. In this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto.

Aye aye,

Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts

Fyodor

Dear Valeria,

“You're a gentleman,” they used to say to him. “You shouldn't have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that's no occupation for a gentleman.”

Yours,

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

Mary

Dear Valeria,

The darkness and loneliness of our vast forests filled me with indescribable emotions, and above all other sounds, the music of the thousand Eolian harps sighing and wailing through a forest of pines, was most affecting to my youthful heart.

All my best,

Mary Shindler

Sheridan

Dear Valeria,

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, “You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever”.

Yours,

Sheridan Le Fanu

Bartolommeo

Cara Valeria,

Vostro,

Bartolommeo Bandinelli

Muhend

Chère Valeria,

Je suis de race berbère et j’ignore à quel point vous nous sous-estimez, mais j’affirme cependant que les berbères sont des gens avancés, qui ont hérité de nombreuses civilisations. Vous ignorez par exemple qu’en tant que berbère, je suis d’origine juive. Mes ancêtres sont ensuite devenus chrétiens, puis musulmans. Maintenant, nous parlons l’arabe, langue du Coran, nous nous entendons en berbère, langue de nos aïeux, mais nous conversons aussi en français, langue de notre pays asservi.

Amicalement,

Muhammad Ibn 'Abd el-Karim El-Khattabi (dit Abdelkrim)

Mahesh

Dear Valeria,

The Beatles came backstage after one of my lectures, and they said to me: “Even from an early age we have been seeking a highly spiritual existence. We tried drugs and that didn't work.” They are such practical and intelligent young boys that it took them only two days to find that Transcendental Meditation is the answer.

Peace and love,

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Carl

Dear Valeria,

This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one’s potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life.

Very best,

Carl Rogers

Maria

Dear Valeria,

I'm still struggling for the image of women in film and I'm still working, not as much as I would like to because for a woman in her late forties, it's hard to find work. Not only in France. I had a chat with Anjelica Huston last year. We spoke about the same problem, you know. I don't know where it comes from? The writers, the producers, or the directors. But I think it's a pity even for the public. We get a response to see a mature woman in film. We see many, many macho men in film. An actress like Meryl Streep doesn't work as much as Bob De Niro.

Amicalement,

Maria Schneider

Boris

Dear Valeria,

One always hears of actors complaining of being typed - if he's young, he's typed as a juvenile; if he's handsome, he's typed as a leading man. I was lucky. Whereas bootmakers have to spend millions to establish a trademark, I was handed a trademark free of charge. When an actor gets in a position to select his own roles, he's in big trouble, for he never knows what he can do best. I'm sure I'd be damn good as little Lord Fauntleroy, but who would pay ten cents to see it?



Your most sincerely,

Boris Karloff

Mary

Dear Valeria,

I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.

Take care,

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley