Virginia Woolf Quotes - Page 21

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It is impossible for human beings, constituted as they are, both to fight and to have ideals.

Virginia Woolf

Fighting, Impossible, Humans

Virginia Woolf (2016). “The Voyage Out”, p.74, Virginia Woolf

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There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them.

Virginia Woolf

Views, Clothes, Support

Virginia Woolf (2012). “Orlando: A Biography”, p.63, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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I need a little language such as lovers use, words of one syllable such as children speak when they come into the room and find their mother sewing and pick up some scrap of bright wool, a feather, or a shred of chintz. I need a howl; a cry. When the storm crosses the marsh and sweeps over me where I lie in the ditch unregarded I need no words. Nothing neat. Nothing that comes down with all its feet on the floor. None of those resonances and lovely echoes that break and chime from nerve to nerve in our breasts making wild music, false phrases. I have done with phrases.

Virginia Woolf

Mother, Children, Lying

Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1452, Delphi Classics

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That great Cathedral space which was childhood.

Virginia Woolf

Time, Space, Childhood

Virginia Woolf, Jeanne Schulkind (1976). “Moments of being: unpublished autobiographical writings”, Sussex University Press

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... the transaction between a writer and the spirit of the age is one of infinite delicacy, and upon a nice arrangement between the two the whole fortune of his works depend.

Virginia Woolf

Nice, Two, Age

Virginia Woolf (2012). “Orlando: A Biography”, p.264, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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to write a novel in the heart of London is next to an impossibility. I feel as if I were nailing a flag to the top of a mast in a raging gale.

Virginia Woolf

Writing, Heart, Flags

Virginia Woolf, Joanne Trautmann Banks (1977). “A change of perspective”, Vintage

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For it is a curious fact that though human beings have such imperfect means of communication, that they can only say 'good to eat' when they mean 'beautiful' and the other way about, they will yet endure ridicule and misunderstanding rather than keep any experience to themselves.

Virginia Woolf

Beautiful, Communication, Mean

Virginia Woolf (2014). “Orlando”, p.122, OUP Oxford

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Only longing can fill with more of itself.

Virginia Woolf

Chaos, Longing

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One could say nothing to nobody. The urgency of the moment always missed its mark. Words fluttered sideways and struck the object inches too low. Then one gave it up; then the idea sunk back again; then one became like most middle-aged people, cautious, furtive, with wrinkles between the eyes and a look of perpetual apprehension. For how could one express in words these emotions of the body? express that emptiness there?

Virginia Woolf

Eye, Wrinkles, Ideas

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... pure honesty is a doubtful quality; it means often lack of imagination.

Virginia Woolf

Honesty, Mean, Imagination

Virginia Woolf (1978). “The Diary of Virginia Woolf: 1920-1924”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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Does Nature supplement what man advanced? Or does she complete what he began?

Virginia Woolf

Men, Doe, Supplements

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There is a coherence in things, a stability; something... is immune from change and shines out... in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby.

Virginia Woolf

Shining, Rubies, Fleeting

Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.322, Wordsworth Editions

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So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

Virginia Woolf

Writing, Long, Wish

Virginia Woolf (2005). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.628, Wordsworth Editions

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It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.

Virginia Woolf

World, Might, Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.184, Wordsworth Editions

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Theories then are dangerous things.

Virginia Woolf

Theory, Dangerous, Dangerous Things

Virginia Woolf (1967). “Collected essays”

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One should aim, seriously, at disregarding ups and downs; a compliment here, silence there ... the central fact remains stable, which is the fact of my own pleasure in the art.

Virginia Woolf

Art, Silence, Facts

Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.4298, Delphi Classics

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Tell me", he wanted to say, "everything in the whole world" - for he had the wildest, most absurd, extravagant ideas about poets and poetry - but how to speak to a man who does not see you? who sees ogres, satyrs, perhaps the depth of the sea instead?

Virginia Woolf

Men, Sea, Ideas

Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1145, Delphi Classics

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Why does one write these books after all? The drudgery, the misery, the grind, are forgotten everytime; and one launches another, and it seems sheer joy and buoyancy.

Virginia Woolf

Book, Writing, Joy

Virginia Woolf, Joanne Trautmann Banks (1975). “The Letters of Virginia Woolf: 1923-1928”, Harcourt on Demand

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Half the time she did things not simply, not for themselves; but to make people think this or that; perfect idiocy she knew for no one was ever for a second taken in.

Virginia Woolf

Taken, Thinking, People

Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.10, Broadview Press

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Ransack the language as he might, words failed him. He wanted another landscape, and another tongue.

Virginia Woolf

Landscape, Might, Tongue

Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.422, Wordsworth Editions

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Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are.

Virginia Woolf

Flower, Tree, Darkness

Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.68, Broadview Press

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And now more than anything I want beautiful prose. I relish it more and more exquisitely.

Virginia Woolf

Beautiful, Want, Prose

Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.4321, Delphi Classics

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A thousand things to be written had I time: had I power. A very little writing uses up my capacity for writing.

Virginia Woolf

Writing, Use, Littles

Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.123, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.

Virginia Woolf

Morning, Home, Writing

Virginia Woolf, David Bradshaw (2009). “Selected Essays”, p.20, Oxford University Press

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To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?…There is nobody—here among these grey arches, and moaning pigeons, and cheerful games and tradition and emulation, all so skilfully organised to prevent feeling alone.

Virginia Woolf

Passion, Games, Feeling Alone

Virginia Woolf (2005). “The Waves”, p.43, Collector's Library

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Born: January 25, 1882
Died: March 28, 1941
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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