Virginia Woolf Quotes - Page 18

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• At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials.

  Virginia Woolf

  Time, Age, Essentials

  Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  16 Copy quote

• Jealousy ... survives every other passion of mankind.

  Virginia Woolf

  Jealousy, Passion, Mankind

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.179, Wordsworth Editions

  7 Copy quote

• It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple; one must be woman-manly or man-womanly. It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman. And fatal is no figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death. It ceases to be fertilized.

  Virginia Woolf

  Stress, Simple, Men

  Virginia Woolf, Morag Shiach (1998). “A Room of One's Own: And, Three Guineas”, p.136

  8 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

• 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

• London perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play and a story and a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets... To walk alone through London is the greatest rest.

  Virginia Woolf

  Moving, Play, Giving

  5 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

• Lord, how tired one gets of one's own writing.

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Tired, Lord

  Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.189, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 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

• Her life was a tissue of vanity and deceit.

  Virginia Woolf

  Lying, Vanity, Deceit

  Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.148, Broadview Press

  6 Copy quote

• Talents of the novelist: ... observation of character, analysis of emotion, people's feelings, personal relations.

  Virginia Woolf

  Character, People, Feelings

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• 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

• A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen.

  Virginia Woolf

  Running, Women, Mean

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1241, Delphi Classics

  9 Copy quote

• She belonged to a different age, but being so entire, so complete, would always stand up on the horizon, stone-white, eminent, like a lighthouse marking some past stage on this adventurous, long, long voyage, this interminable --- this interminable life.

  Virginia Woolf

  Past, White, Long

  Virginia Woolf (1996). “Mrs Dalloway”, p.118, Wordsworth Editions

  9 Copy quote

• He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams.

  Virginia Woolf

  Dream, Memories, Exquisite

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1058, Delphi Classics

  9 Copy quote

• But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles.

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Eye, Practice

  Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.25, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

• Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

  Virginia Woolf

  Thinking, Years, Voice

  Virginia Woolf (2015). “A Room of One's Own (Annotated)”, p.65, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

• Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems.

  Virginia Woolf

  Fiction, Problem, Unsolved Problems

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.565, Wordsworth Editions

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• Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Voice, Secret

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

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• Methinks the human method of expression by sound of tongue is very elementary, and ought to be substituted for some ingenious invention which should be able to give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once.

  Virginia Woolf

  Expression, Giving, Sound

  9 Copy quote

• The habit of writing for my eye is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.

  Virginia Woolf

  Eye, Writing, Practice

  9 Copy quote

• The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

  Virginia Woolf

  Life, Happiness, Independent

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.2280, Delphi Classics

  11 Copy quote

• A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.

  Virginia Woolf

  Writing, Quality, Literature

  1925 The Common Reader, 'The Modern Essay'.

  10 Copy quote

• The strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have been apparent to every one for hundreds of years, no one has left any adequate account of it.

  Virginia Woolf

  Years, Adequate, Strange

  Virginia Woolf (2007). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.70, Wordsworth Editions

  9 Copy quote

• The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think.

  Virginia Woolf

  Dark, Thinking, Best Things

  Virginia Woolf, Anne Olivier Bell (1977). “The Diary of Virginia Woolf: 1915-1919”, Chatto & Windus

  7 Copy quote

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