Virginia Woolf Quotes - Page 18

Quotes about:

• To be caught happy in a world of misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes.

  Virginia Woolf

  Happiness, Men, World

  Virginia Woolf (2016). “To the Lighthouse”, p.44, Virginia Woolf

  4 Copy quote

• I want the concentration and the romance, and the worlds all glued together, fused, glowing: have no time to waste any more on prose.

  Virginia Woolf

  Glowing, Romance, Together

  Virginia Woolf (1990). “A moment's liberty: the shorter diary”, Vintage

  62 Copy quote

• When the shriveled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning, it satisfies the senses amazingly.

  Virginia Woolf

  Philosophy, Medicine, Skins

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1291, Delphi Classics

  45 Copy quote

• All the months are crude experiments,
  out of which the perfect September is made.

  Virginia Woolf

  Perfect, Months, September

  Virginia Woolf (1990). “A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897-1909”, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

• In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment in June.

  Virginia Woolf

  Eye, Men, June

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.852, Delphi Classics

  5 Copy quote

• It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road.

  Virginia Woolf

  Moving, Mind, Legs

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.571, Wordsworth Editions

  6 Copy quote

• 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

• 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

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

  Virginia Woolf

  Funny, Pimples, Insult

  6 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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