Paul

Liebe Valeria,



Grüße und Küsse,

Paul Klee

Michel

Chère Valeria,

La vieille puissance de la mort où se symbolisait le pouvoir souverain est maintenant recouverte soigneusement par l'administration des corps et la gestion calculatrice de la vie.

Votre ami,

Michel Foucault

Mimi

Chère Valeria,

Maîtresse (1996)

Salutations,

Mimi Parent

Bibi

Dear Valeria,

Part of being an actress is aliveness, alertness, and it comes from not letting yourself stiffen. I wanted to see life, wanted to smell it, and I felt starving, mentally.

Stay alive,
Bibi

Vonda

Dear Valeria,

“It won't be any of those things,” J.D. said. “I don't know what it will be, but it will be something different.”

With love,

Vonda N. McIntyre

Gerda

Dear Valeria,

Never stop fighting,

Gerda Taro

Kurt

Dear Valeria,

I gather from what I read in the papers and hear on television that you imagine me, and some other writers, too, as being sort of ratlike people who enjoy making money from poisoning the minds of young people. I am in fact a large, strong person, fifty-one years old, who did a lot of farm work as a boy, who is good with tools. I have raised six children, three my own and three adopted. They have all turned out well. Two of them are farmers. I am a combat infantry veteran from World War II, and hold a Purple Heart. I have earned whatever I own by hard work. I have never been arrested or sued for anything. I am so much trusted with young people and by young people that I have served on the faculties of the University of Iowa, Harvard, and the City College of New York. Every year I receive at least a dozen invitations to be commencement speaker at colleges and high schools. My books are probably more widely used in schools than those of any other living American fiction writer.

I am very real,

Kurt Vonnegut

Ursula

Dear Valeria,

What good is a literature of dissent?

This: if you don't preach to the choir, the choir won’t keep singing. We need to hear each other’s voices. A constant, urgent need. Dissent is nothing if it doesn’t speak, and speak again.

Yours truly,

Ursula K. Le Guin

Carrie

Dear Valeria,

That’s the way it works in movies. Something happens that has an impact on someone’s life, and based on that impact, his life shifts course. Well, that’s not how it happens in life. Something has an impact on you, and then your life stays the same, and you think, “Well, what about the impact?” You have epiphanies all the time. They just don't have any effect.

Love,

Carrie Fisher

Wilfred

Dear friends,

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
      —Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
   Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
   Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
   And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Yours,

Wilfred Owen

Pablo

Querida Valeria,

Y fue a esa edad... Llegó la poesía
a buscarme. No sé, no sé de dónde
salió, de invierno o río.
No sé cómo ni cuándo,
no, no eran voces, no eran
palabras, ni silencio,
pero desde una calle me llamaba,
desde las ramas de la noche,
de pronto entre los otros,
entre fuegos violentos
o regresando solo,
allí estaba sin rostro
y me tocaba.

Siempre,

Pablo Neruda

Aretha

Dear Valeria,

Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It’s transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, it’s uplifting, it’s encouraging, it’s strengthening.

Love,

Aretha Franklin

Peter

Dear Valeria,



From one puppetter to another,

Peter Firmin

Dick

Dear Valeria,

I am really enjoying the new MLK Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.

Peace and freedom,

Dick Gregory

Jeanne

Dear Valeria,

I shall die very young...maybe seventy, maybe eighty, maybe ninety. But I shall be very young.

Many, many kisses

Jeanne Moreau

Louise

Dear Valeria,

At the dinner table when I was very little, I would hear people bickering... To escape the bickering, I started modelling the soft bread with my fingers. With the dough of the French bread --sometimes it was still warm-- I would make little figures. And I would line them up on the table and this was really my first sculpture.

Best wishes,

Louise Bourgeois

Vivian

Dear Valeria,

Fond regards,

Vivian Maier

Janet

Dear Valeria,

So who's more adult - somebody who works like mad to avoid a problem or somebody who works like mad to solve it?

Best regards,

Janet Kagan

Leonard

Dear Valeria,

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.

LLAP,

Leonard Nimoy

Lucille

Dear Valeria,

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.

the warmest hug,
Lucille Clifton