Letters of Note

@lettersofnote

Professional letter nerd since 2009. Buy the books (), read the newsletter ( come to the live shows ( Or don't. It's your choice.

130 Following12,146 Followers63 Posts

Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and lettersofnote.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jun 12

RIP David Hockney

I’m 82, I’m going to die. We die because we are born. The only things that matter in life are food and love, in that order, and also our little dog Ruby. I truly believe this, and for me, the basis of art is love. I love life.

David Hockney
Letter to Ruth Mackenzie
April 2020

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Feb 26

On this day in 1977, Cary Grant wrote to his daughter as she turned eleven. (From 'Evenings With Cary Grant: Recollections in His Own Words and by Those Who Knew Him Best', by Nancy Nelson. With a foreword by Barbara and Jennifer Grant.)

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Feb 12

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 27

Happy birthday Mozart!

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Oct 1

On this day in 1905, Virginia Woolf was doubting her abilities. Her debut novel, The Voyage Out, would be published ten years later.

No one really takes very much interest, why should they, in my scribblings. Do you think I shall ever write a really good book?

Virginia Woolf
Letter to Violet Dickinson
1st October 19051

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Sep 4

On this day in 1858. #perpetualorgy

"The only way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy."

Gustave Flaubert
Letter to Leroyer de Chantepie
4th September 1858

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Mar 15

On this day in 1941. (From the book, 'Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera' by Gerry Souter)

"Frankly, I don’t have the least ambition to be anybody. I don’t care for people’s pretentiousness, and I am in no way interested in becoming a “big shit.”"

Frida Kahlo to Dr. Leo Eloesser, 15th March 1941

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Feb 10

On this day in 1933.

“Sorry I was so glum. I'm in a cursed mood and can't bear the human face.”
Virginia Woolf
Letter to Ethel Smyth
10th February 1933

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 22

"I did not answer that question, for I have no doubt that sooner or later they will find their way, free of charge." —From Sendak's book, 'Caldecott & Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures'

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 16

A note David Lynch sent to his parents in 1977, the year Eraserhead was unleashed on the public. (From the excellent book, 'Room to Dream' – by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna. Published in 2018.)

Dear Mom....and Dad, please don't see the film Eraserhead......and Don't tell anyone I did.

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 15

On this day in 1972, John Cheever was going through it.

"The day is overcast. It looks like snow. My marriage is in the dumps. I drink vodka for breakfast."

John Cheever
Letter to Tanya
15th January 1972

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 10

On this day in 1957, American screenwriter Dalton Trumbo wrote to his daughter as she visited Europe.

"You have, in common with every child who ever grew up, made minor mistakes—I repeat, minor: but are you also aware that regardless of those small concerns we may have felt from time to time about your development (and all parents feel such concern), you have given us so much more happiness than discontent—in a ratio of, roughly, a million to one—that we shall never be able to reward you adequately for having entered our lives.

We wanted you, took measures to have you, got you—and are forever the winners."

Dalton Trumbo
Letter to his 17-year-old daughter, Nikola
10th January 1957

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 9

Letter printed in The Times, 1st Jan 2025.

Sir, I can attest to the power of handwriting (letters, Dec 26, 28, 30 & 31). My husband of 62 years and four months died a year ago. He remained my beloved until the end but I found that I couldn’t remember him as he was in his prime, which was distressing. During the Christmas break I found and reread for the first time the hundreds of letters we wrote to each other during our engagement: we lived in different countries, there was no internet, telephone was expensive and the post was cheap.

It is wonderful therapy and a great comfort. I can hear and almost see him as he was then and I find myself falling in love with him all over again.

Aude Fitzsimons
Girton, Cambridge

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 8

Happy birthday to this unimprovable bunch of words.

"I met [name redacted] recently—a stooped, coyote-eyed man with small hands, fingers like little sausages and soft as those of an old, old lady. He caresses his fingers in his lap as though they were precious and in danger. To shake hands with him is like touching the teats of an old cow."

John Steinbeck
Letter to Ed Sheehan
8th January 1963

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 7

"If you give in, nothing can help you."

"This letter will probably reach you sometime around the New Year and so some New Year’s wishes would be in order. The more I think about it, the more I incline to the opinion that the most important thing of all is not to lose hope and faith in life itself. Anyone who does so is lost, regardless of what good fortune may befall him. . . And so, from the bottom of my heart, my New Year’s wish is that you not lose your hope, faith and ability to delight in the world—even if the world is the way it is. If you can manage that, everything else will come; if you give in, nothing can help you."

Václav Havel
Letter to his wife, Olga
21st December 1980

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Jan 2

Happy New Year!

"A new year is beginning and no doubt it will be as dull, as stupid, as criminal as the ones that have preceded it."

Charles Baudelaire
Letter to Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve
2nd January 1866

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Dec 28

Virginia Woolf on this day in 1932.

“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery-always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud.”
Virginia Woolf
Letter to Ethel Smyth
28th December 1932

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Dec 19

On this day in 1949. (From 'Edith Sitwell: Selected Letters 1919-1964'.)

"I must say I hope the coming year will be better than the last one, which, I think, was sheer hell."

Edith Sitwell
Letter to John Lehmann
19th December 1949

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Dec 1

All other pieces of writing advice can stand down. We have a winner.

“Don’t ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out.”

Charles Bukowski
Letter to Neeli Cherry
20th September 1963

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Nov 23

“Any better ideas?”

“When I had oesophageal cancer in 2022, you were kind enough to publish my letter about naming my tumour “Boris”, as an unwelcome growth that needed to be eliminated.

Well, I won that one, but now the gods have decided to bestow prostate cancer upon me. My shortlist of names this time around is “Donald”, “Elon”, “Vladimir” and “Nigel”.

Any better ideas?”

Rodney Smith
Letter to The Guardian
October 2024

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Nov 21

😳

"I want your strength and your softness, your hands, all of you; you don’t know the things I remember and crave. Henry, Henry, I remember everything—the day in the woods, and the nights in Clichy, and the lawnmower…"

Anaïs Nin - Letter to Henry Miller, 5th August 1932

Letters of Note@lettersofnote· Nov 19

On this day in 1963, Samuel Beckett wrote to a friend whose father had recently died. (From 'No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett & Alan Schneider')