So Long A Letter Quotes & Sayings

I said I would write one letter every day after the mail came. But I did not do that for long. I did not answer most of the letters that came to me. I would plan to walk south in the early part of the afternoon, so as to get a little sun on my face. But I did not do that for long. Although I liked the idea of a rigid order, and seemed to believe that a thing would have more value if it was part of an order, I quickly became tired of the order. — Lydia Davis

It has long been a theory of mine and I am known, if I do say so, for my long theories that authors, generally speaking, are rotten letter writers. — Cleveland Amory

That night I didn't sleep a wink, said Norton in her letter, and it occurred to me to call Morini. It was late, it was rude to bother him at that hour, it was rash of me, it was a terrible imposition, but I called him. I remember I dialed his number and immediately I turned out the light in the room, as if so long as I was in the dark Morini couldn't see my face. To my surprise, he picked up the phone instantly. — Roberto Bolano

Sir, Your letter of the 15th is received, but Age has long since obliged me to withhold my mind from Speculations of the difficulty of those of your letter, that their are means of artificial buoyancy by which man may be supported in the Air, the Balloon has proved, and that means of directing it may be discovered is against no law of Nature and is therefore possible as in the case of Birds, but to do this by mechanical means alone in a medium so rare and unassisting as air must have the aid of some principal not yet generally known. — Thomas Jefferson

Daniel!" She waved the letter. "I have news," she called in the English she always used with him.
Her son straightened up from the horse. "What, Mama?"
Eager expectancy glowed in his blue eyes, and for a moment he looked so much like his father that a familiar pain pierced her heart and tempered her excitement. From long practice, she shoved her sadness aside. "I've inherited Uncle Ezra's ranch in Montana. — Debra Holland

She snatched at the dream that had comforted her for so long. It was faded and thin, like a letter too often read. — Elizabeth George Speare

We see Paul's gospel fixation echoed throughout his letter to the Philippians. He is the man who when threatened says, "Well, to die is gain." In response his captors will say, "We'll torture you, then." He says, "I don't count the present suffering as worthy to even compare to the future glory." You can't win with a guy like this. If you want to kill him, he's cool with that because it means he gets to be with Jesus. If you want to make him suffer, he's cool with that, so long as it makes him like Jesus. If you want to let him live, he's fine with that, because to him, "to live is Christ." Paul is, as Richard Sibbes says of everyone united with Christ, a man who "can never be conquered. — Matt Chandler

Which class is happiest, the rich, the middle class or the poor? A very successful executive of a large organization touches upon this vital subject in a long letter to all his salesmen. He uses as his text a passage from Robinson Crusoe which included this: ""My Father bid me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and were not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind. — B.C. Forbes

Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man - no matter who he is - that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature. — Emily Post

Amal: It isn't sad. When they shut me in here first I felt the day was so long. Since the King's Post Office I like it more and more being indoors, and as I think I shall get a letter one day, I feel quite happy and then I don't mind being quiet and alone. I wonder if I shall make out what'll be in the King's letter?
Gaffer: Even if you didn't wouldn't it be enough if it just bore your name? — Rabindranath Tagore

Letter 68


A pod of whales was lying like long reclining Buddhas on the sea.
My sister and I put our ears to the bottom of the boat so we could listen to their songs.

We turned to my grandfather and asked, "What do their song mean?"

"The whales do not sing because they have an answer," he said.
"They sing because they have a song. — Gregory Colbert

I suppose animals kept in cages, and so scantily fed as to be always upon the verge of famine, await their food as I awaited a letter. Oh! - to speak the truth, and drop that tone of a false calm which long to sustain, outwears nature's endurance - I underwent in those seven weeks bitter fears and pains, strange inward trials, miserable defections of hope, intolerable encroachments of despair. This last came so near me sometimes that her breath went right through me. I used to feel it like a baleful air or sigh, penetrate deep, and make motion pause at my heart, or proceed only under unspeakable oppression. The letter - the well-beloved letter - would not come; and it was all of sweetness in life I had to look for. — Charlotte Bronte

Whereas the disparity between Henry and me is permanent?" She tucked her chin, regarding him in bemusement. "I never meant to suggest any such thing." Did Phillip feel inferior in some way to his elder brother? She could not credit it. He flicked a playful finger under her chin. "I should hope not. I always rather thought you preferred me to Henry." Emma's nerves crackled to life. She took a long breath and told herself to stop imagining references to that cursed letter. She swallowed and answered diplomatically, "You and I, being so close in age, naturally became friends. Henry and I did not." He gave her a crooked grin and tweaked her chin once more. "That's what I like to hear. — Julie Klassen

You're not very good at this," Emma said, laughing at the frustration on Sean's face.
He pulled his hand out from under the back of her T-shirt. "You're distracting me."
"How am I distracting you?" She shook the bag at Sean, reminding him to pull two letter tiles to replace the C and the T he'd used to make CAT.
"You look totally hot. And you did it on purpose so I wouldn't be able to concentrate and you'd win."
Emma laughed. Sure, she'd thrown on baggy flannel boxers and an old Red Sox T-shirt after her shower just to seduce him out of triple-word scores. "You not having a shirt on is distracting. And you keep pretending you want to rub my back so you can peek at my tile rack."
"Nothing wrong with checking out your rack." He craned his neck to see better and she shoved him away. It wasn't easy playing Scrabble sitting side by side on the couch, but after a long workday, neither was willing to take the floor. — Shannon Stacey

I got through so much ink in the learning that the inkseller took to knocking at least once a week on the garden door. He had a gray solemn face that looked as if it was chiseled out of stone; he was stooped down like the letter C, as if he were Atlas carrying the weight of the world in his wooden barrel of ink. Maybe he did. I have learned that there is great power in words, no matter how long or short they be. — Sally Gardner

I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. — Mark Twain

No realm was too petty: The Ministry of Posts ruled that henceforth when trying to spell a word over the telephone a caller could no longer say "D as in David," because "David" was a Jewish name. The caller had to use "Dora." "Samuel" became "Siegfried." And so forth. "There has been nothing in social history more implacable, more heartless and more devastating than the present policy in Germany against the Jews," Consul General Messersmith told Undersecretary Phillips in a long letter dated September 29, 1933. He wrote, "It is definitely the aim of the Government, no matter what it may say to the outside or in Germany, to eliminate the Jews from German life. — Erik Larson

It must take a lot of self-discipline,' she said.
'Oh, I don't know. I don't have much.' He felt himself about to say again, and unable to resist saying, that 'Dumas, I think it was Dumas, some terrifically prolific Frenchman, said that writing novels is a simple matter - if you write one page a day, you'll write one novel a year, two pages a day, two novels a year, three pages, three novels, and so on. And how long does it take to cover a page with writing? Twenty minutes? An hour? So you see. Very easy really.'
'I don't know,' she said, laughing. 'I can't even bring myself to write a letter.'
'Oh, now that's hard.'
("Novelty") — John Crowley

Nanna: Inside, there was a long rigmarole that went on and on; it began with my hair, which had been cut off in the church, and said that he had gathered it together and made a neckband of it for himself; and my forehead was clearer than a cloudless sky. He compared my eyebrows to the black wood which is used to make combs, and he said that my cheeks were so white that they filled milk and cream with envy. He declared my teeth were like a row of pearls, and my lips like pomegranate blossoms; he composed a great preamble on my hands - he even praised my fingernails; and he said that my voice was like the canticle 'Gloria in eccelsis'; and when he came to my breasts, he waxed positively ecstatic - they displayed two apples as white and shining as the snow in sunlight. Finally he allowed himself to slip down to the fountain, saying that he had drunk from it all unworthily, and that it distilled nectar and manna, and that the curls of hair round it were made of silk. — Pietro Aretino

Oh, God in heaven, kill me now ... " Rachel groaned. "I hate going to see Mrak. I always feel awkward going back to Velik Tor. After being a Scorpion for so long, after everything Oron's told us about Mrak's past ... " she shook her head darkly. "I don't know if I'll be able to resist the temptation to perforate his bowels."
Notak looked back down at the letter. "Post script," he read aloud. "Rachel, please leave Mrak alive and unharmed. We still need him, unfortunately, no matter how tempting it is to perforate his bowels."
"You made that up, he did not say that!"
Notak handed her the letter, pointing. "Right there at the bottom."
Rachel squinted at the writing. "Faul. — S.G. Night

The novelist Thomas Wolfe, recalling a lifelong struggle with illness, wrote in his last letter, "I've made a long voyage and been to a strange country, and I've seen the dark man very close." I had not made the journey myself, and I had only seen the darkness reflected in the eyes of others. But surely, it was the most sublime moment of my clinical life to have watched that voyage in reverse, to encounter men and women returning from the strange country - to see them so very close, clambering back. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts, and pray long prayers? — Martin Luther King Jr.

I read an article in a women's magazine about "writing purple prose for love and money." They made it sound easy, so I started writing on an old electronic typewriter that alternated between stuck keys and high throttle. I had no clue my first letter to Harlequin came back marked "Return to Sender." Luckily, I made my first sale before I understood how long the odds were. — Carrie Alexander

This is exactly the point Jesus reiterates in Matthew 23:23, where he exhorts the people to keep "the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness," without neglecting the responsibility they have to tithe their mint, dill, and cumin. Clearly, Jesus doesn't want us to keep the little commandments in Scripture and miss the big stuff, but neither does he allow us to overlook the smallest parts so long as we get the big picture right. He expects obedience to the spirit of the law and to the letter. Our Messiah sees himself as an expositor of Scripture, but never a corrector of Scripture. He fulfills it, but never falsifies it. He turns away wrong interpretations of Scripture, but insists there is nothing wrong with Scripture, down to the crossing of t's and dotting of i's. — Kevin DeYoung

In a long letter that Shidlovsky wrote to Mikhail in February 1839, he writes equally freely and casually about his urge to go off on a drinking spree with Mikhail, and his flirtations with the wives of friends who aspire to be immortalized in his verse. Shidlovsky, evidently, was one of those "broad" Russian natures, oscillating between the most contradictory moral impulses, that Dostoevsky later so often portrayed. No doubt his complete freedom from any kind of stuffiness constituted one source of the magnetism he exercised on his younger friends. But Shidlovsky's ebullience did not prevent him from plunging into one severe spiritual crisis after another brought on by his torn and divided personality. — Steven Pinker

One way to solve an encrypted message, if we know its language, is to find a different plaintext of the same language long enough to fill one sheet or so, and then we count the occurrences of each letter. We call the most frequently occurring letter the 'first', the next most occurring letter the 'second', the following most occurring letter the 'third', and so on, until we account for all the different letters in the plaintext sample.

Then we look at the ciphertext we want to solve and we also classify its symbols. We find the most occurring symbol and change it to the form of the 'first' letter of the plaintext sample, the next most common symbol is changed to the form of the 'second' letter, and the following most common symbol is changed to the form of the 'third' letter, and so on, until we account for all symbols of the cryptogram we want to solve. — Abu Yusuf Al-Kindi

Around 1980, I'd been writing short stories, all to no success; so I wrote a fan letter to Stephen King and asked "How long should it take an aspiring writer to either get published or know when to give up?" Lo and behold, King wrote back to me in long hand with blue flair pen on 14-inch paper, purveying a very nice, helpful note; in it he said my letter proved a "command of the language," that I should never give up, and that it would take years to succeed, not months. "That's cold comfort but it's the truth." This was the ultimate encouragement for a young writer to be who didn't know shit about the market. I took Mr. King's advice and actually sold my first novel little more than a year later. I'll always be copiously grateful for this advice, and it's the same advice I give aspiring writers now (along with the story of King's reply!). — Edward Lee

This history has for so long lived like a spider in my breast. The spider spins and spins, catching memories in its web, threatening to devour every final happiness. With this letter I hope to sweep away the terror and the sadness and to have my heart made pure again by God's grace. — Kathleen Kent

Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

However, I was not long to rest in piece[sic], for in a few days I received a letter from Carter Brooks, as follows:
DEAR BARBARA: It was sweet of you to write me so promptly, although I confess to being rather astonished as well as delighted at being called "Dearest." The signature too was charming, "Ever thine." But, dear child, won't you write at once and tell me why the waist, bust and hip measurements? And the request to have them really low in the neck? Ever thine, CARTER.
It will be perceived that I had sent him the letter to mother, by mistake. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

How do you let go of anger? How do you release a fury you've been standing on for so long, you would stumble if it were yanked away? As Sully sat in his old room, holding the letter, he felt himself lifting off from his bitterness, the way one lifts off in a dream. Elliot Gray, an enemy for so long, was now seen differently, a man forgivable for his mistake. — Mitch Albom

I don't have time to write you a short letter, so I'm writing you a long one instead. — Mark Twain

Salvation, then, is not "going to heaven" but "being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth." But as soon as we put it like this we realize that the New Testament is full of hints, indications, and downright assertions that this salvation isn't just something we have to wait for in the long-distance future. We can enjoy it here and now (always partially, of course, since we all still have to die), genuinely anticipating in the present what is to come in the future. "We were saved," says Paul in Romans 8:24, "in hope." The verb "we were saved" indicates a past action, something that has already taken place, referring obviously to the complex of faith and baptism of which Paul has been speaking in the letter so far. But this remains "in hope" because we still look forward to the ultimate future salvation of which he speaks in (for instance) Romans 5:9, 10. — N. T. Wright

Varium et mutabile! murmurs the man sagely - "A woman's privilege is to change her mind!" If the nature of his industry were such that he had to change his mind from cooking to cleaning, from cleaning to sewing, from sewing to nursing, from nursing to teaching, and so, backward, forward, crosswise and over again, from morning to night - he too would become adept in the lightning-change act. The man adopts one business and follows it. He develops special ability, on long lines, in connection with wide interests - and so grows broader and steadier. The distinction is there, but it is not a distinction of sex. This is why the man forgets to mail the letter. He is used to one consecutive train of thought and action. She, used to a varying zigzag horde of little things, can readily accommodate a few more. — Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing when in conflict with another man's right of property...
This is a world of compensations; and he would -be- no slave must consent to -have- no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
All honor to Jefferson - to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression. Your obedient Servant,
[Abraham Lincoln]
April 6, 1859, in a letter to MA State Rep Henry L. Pierce
Springfield, Ill. — Abraham Lincoln