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Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf Quotes

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Famous Virginia Woolf Quotes

“There must be another life, she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded her. There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves.”

PeopleIfsKnowsLifeDreamFeltRoomsHairBrokenStandingEdgesChairsToo ShortHere And NowSinkingAnother LifePrecipiceStanding On The Edge
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)
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“And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!”

MenFirstsYoungDesireEnemyHairProudIndiaHorseWaveStrikesFlyingPerceiveYoung ManRisingRidersAdvancingSpursSpearsFlingArchesPavementUnyielding
Book:Selected Works of Virginia Woolf
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“Rhoda comes now, having slipped in while we were not looking. She must have made a tortuous course, taking cover now behind a waiter, now behind some ornamental pillar, so as to put off as long as possible the shock of recognition, so as to be secure for one more moment to rock her petals in her basin. We wake her. We torture her. She dreads us, she despises us, yet she comes cringing to our sides because for al our cruelty there is always some name, some face which sheds a radiance, which lights up her pavements and makes it possible for her to replenish her dreams.”

LongMadeMomentsDreamLightFacesCoursesNamesSidesBehindsRocksCrueltySecureRecognitionTortureShockAlsDespiseDreadShedPillarsPetalsRadianceLight UpWaiterPavement
Author:Virginia Woolf
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“Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who will, with luck, turn into the best friend we have in the world.”

WorldMayBookHandsTogetherTurnsCompanyAdventureLuckLibraryStrangerCharmVolumeHomelessFeathersMiscellaneousFlocksSecond Hand
Book:Selected essays
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“Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.”

ThinkingWorldDoeSoulMatterWonderMovementEssenceMiracleCaringConfusionFantasticImpulseRepeatsFancyNonsenseConformityPerpetualEvery SecondFlingRigidityNothing MattersCauldrons
Book:The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1925-1928
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“We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds' feet is unknown. Here we go alone, and like it better so. Always to have sympathy, always to be accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable.”

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Book:Selected essays
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“I feel that I have had a blow; but it is not, as I thought as a child, simply a blow from an enemy hidden behind the cotton wool of daily life; it is or will become a revelation of some order; it is a token of some real thing behind appearances; and I make it real by putting it into words. It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole; this wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together.”

GivingFeelsMeanChildrenRealWholePainTogetherOrderLostHurtBehindsEnemyGive MeBlowDelightAppearanceRevelationsDaily LifeWholenessReal ThingsHurt MeCottonTokensWool
Book:Moments of being: unpublished autobiographical writings
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“Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching. That was how Shakespeare wrote, I thought, looking at Antony and Cleopatra; and when people compare Shakespeare and Jane Austen, they may mean that the minds of both had consumed all impediments; and for that reason we do not know Jane Austen and we do not know Shakespeare, and for that reason Jane Austen pervades every word that she wrote, and so does Shakespeare.”

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Book:A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas
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“If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; infinitely beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man; some think even greater.”

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Book:Selected Works of Virginia Woolf
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