5 Quotes by Diane Joy Charney

To Sartre: There have been many Jean-Pauls in my life, but you’re the only one in whose bedroom I have slept. You’re probably wondering what I’m talking about, so I will explain.

He may have been ‘the best-looking thing in pants,’ but he wasn’t getting into mine.

Each letter is part memoir, part intellectual coming-of-age, part reaction to having read, loved, studied, and taught the work of these timeless writers. Libraries are full of essays and literary studies about these authors, but a letter is more personal and intimate. These letters reflect my own relationship with the authors – what they have taught me about myself, but also what they can offer the reader.

By standard measures of time, portrait artist Mirella and I may seem like relatively new friends. But in our case, that feels like an illusion. When it comes to literary soulmates, time follows an arc of its own. In fact, the previous observation is what drives my Letters to Men of Letters.

After all, what is a letter, if not the attempt to bridge the gap between a certain “here” and elsewhere – a way of encapsulating and holding in one’s hand something that has been in both places? A way of marking and capturing lost time? Maybe the letter has always been my madeleine.