Virginia Woolf Quotes - Page 18

Quotes about:

• There are moments when one can neither think nor feel, she thought, and if one can neithre feel nor think, where's one?

  Virginia Woolf

  Thinking, Moments, Feels

  5 Copy quote

• I feel that by writing I am doing what is far more necessary than anything else.

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Feels

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.4186, Delphi Classics

  6 Copy quote

• Where the Mind is biggest, the Heart, the Senses, Magnanimity, Charity, Tolerance, Kindliness, and the rest of them scarcely have room to breathe.

  Virginia Woolf

  Heart, Tolerance, Mind

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.501, Wordsworth Editions

  12 Copy quote

• Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action.

  Virginia Woolf

  Mirrors, Essentials, Use

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.2634, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

• It seemed to her such nonsense-inventing differences, when people, heaven knows, were different enough without that.

  Virginia Woolf

  Differences, People, Heaven

  Virginia Woolf (2016). “To the Lighthouse”, p.7, Tyché

  7 Copy quote

• [Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.

  Virginia Woolf

  Funny, Pimples, Insult

  6 Copy quote

• What has praise and fame to do with poetry? Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice? So that all this chatter and praise, and blame and meeting people who admired one and meeting people who did not admire one was as ill suited as could be to the thing itself- a voice answering a voice.

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Voice, People

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Orlando: A Biography”, p.306, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

• And you wish to be a poet; and you wish to be a lover.

  Virginia Woolf

  Wish, Lovers, Poet

  Virginia Woolf (2005). “The Waves”, p.72, Collector's Library

  8 Copy quote

• We are about to part," said Neville. "Here are the boxes; here are the cabs. There is Percival in his billycock hat. He will forget me. He will leave my letters lying about among guns and dogs unaswered. I shall send him poems and he will perhaps reply with a picture post card. But it is for that that I love him. I shall propose a meeting - under a clock, by some Cross; and shall wait and he will not come. It is for that that I love him.

  Virginia Woolf

  Dog, Lying, I Love Him

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.665, Wordsworth Editions

  7 Copy quote

• women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. ... Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own.

  Virginia Woolf

  Dog, Stress, Writing

  Virginia Woolf, Morag Shiach (1998). “A Room of One's Own: And, Three Guineas”, p.141

  4 Copy quote

• It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.

  Virginia Woolf

  Ridiculous, Curious, Protect

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.2002, Delphi Classics

  10 Copy quote

• They lack suggestive power. And when a book lacks suggestive power, however hard it hits the surface of the mind it cannot penetrate within.

  Virginia Woolf

  Book, Mind, Surface

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.626, Wordsworth Editions

  8 Copy quote

• Chastity ... has, even now, a religious importance in a woman's life, and has so wrapped itself round with nerves and instincts that to cut it free and bring it to the light of day demands courage of the rarest.

  Virginia Woolf

  Religious, Cutting, Light

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.594, Wordsworth Editions

  8 Copy quote

• Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.

  Virginia Woolf

  Women, Occupation, May

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.588, Wordsworth Editions

  13 Copy quote

• For this is the truth about our soul, he thought, who fish-like inhabits deep seas and plies among obscurities threading her way between the boles of giant weeds, over sun-flickered spaces and on and on into gloom, cold, deep, inscrutable; suddenly she shoots to the surface and sports on the wind-wrinkled waves; that is, has a positive need to brush, scrape, kindle herself, gossiping.

  Virginia Woolf

  Sports, Weed, Wind

  Virginia Woolf (1996). “Mrs Dalloway”, p.117, Wordsworth Editions

  8 Copy quote

• I am reading Henry James...and feel myself as one entombed in a block of smooth amber.

  Virginia Woolf

  Block, Reading, Amber

  4 Copy quote

• Twice Flush had done his utmost to kill his enemy; twice he had failed. And why had he failed, he asked himself? Because he loved Miss Barrett. Looking up at her from under his eyebrows as she lay, severe and silent on the sofa, he knew that he must love her for ever. Things are not simple but complex. If he bit Mr. Browning he bit her too. Hatred is not hatred; hatred is also love.

  Virginia Woolf

  Simple, Eyebrows, Hatred

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Flush”, p.37, Lulu Press, Inc

  8 Copy quote

• My mind turned by anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper, is like a lost child–wandering the house, sitting on the bottom step to cry.

  Virginia Woolf

  Children, House, Anxiety

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.4304, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

• Peter would think her sentimental. So she was. For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying – what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt.

  Virginia Woolf

  Silly, Thinking, Sentimental

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.191, Broadview Press

  8 Copy quote

• With my cheek leant upon the window pane I like to fancy that I am pressing as closely as can be upon the massy wall of time, which is forever lifting and pulling and letting fresh spaces of life in upon us. May it be mine to taste the moment before it has spread itself over the rest of the world! Let me taste the newest and the freshest.

  Virginia Woolf

  Wall, Window Panes, Space

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1969, Delphi Classics

  11 Copy quote

• For she was a child, throwing bread to the ducks, between her parents who stood by the lake, holding her life in her arms which, as she neared them, grew larger and larger in her arms, until it became a whole life, a complete life, which she put down by them and said, "This is what I have made of it! This!" And what had she made of it? What, indeed?

  Virginia Woolf

  Children, Lakes, Ducks

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.878, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

• The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight.

  Virginia Woolf

  Moon, Voice, Rivers

  Virginia Woolf (2015). “The String Quartet”, p.5, Booklassic

  4 Copy quote

• It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.

  Virginia Woolf

  Determination, Book, Writing

  Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.37, HMH

  11 Copy quote

• She tapped on the window with her embossed hairbrush. They were too far off to hear. The drone of the trees was in their ears; the chirp of birds; other incidents of garden life, inaudible, invisible to her in the bedroom, absorbed them. Isolated on a green island, hedged about with snowdrops, laid with a counterpane of puckered silk, the innocent island floated under her window. Only George lagged behind.

  Virginia Woolf

  Garden, Islands, Bird

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.933, Wordsworth Editions

  14 Copy quote

• ...she took her hand and raised her brush. For a moment it stayed trembling in a painful but exciting ecstacy in the air. Where to begin?--that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions. All that in idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer among them are divided by steep gulfs, and foaming crests. Still the risk must run; the mark made.

  Virginia Woolf

  Running, Simple, Air

  9 Copy quote

Page 18 of 33

First

← Prev

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin