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Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf Quotes

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Famous Virginia Woolf Quotes

“How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible to touch or taste, one haunted the dome-shaped hive, ranged the wastes of the air over the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with their murmurs and their stirrings; the hives which were people.”

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Book:To the Lighthouse
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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.”

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Book:Selected essays
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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?”

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Author:Virginia Woolf
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“Words, English words, are full of echoes, of memories, of associations. They have been out and about, on people's lips, in their houses, in the streets, in the fields, for so many centuries. And that is one of the chief difficulties in writing them today -- that they are stored with other meanings, with other memories, and they have contracted so many famous marriages in the past.”

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Author:Virginia Woolf
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“As a creator of character his peculiarity is that he creates wherever his eyes rest ... With such a power at his command Dickens made his books blaze up, not by tightening the plot or sharpening the wit, but by throwing another handful of people upon the fire.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)
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“If behind the erratic gunfire of the press the author felt that there was another kind of criticism, the opinion of people readingfor the love of reading, slowly and unprofessionally, and judging with great sympathy and yet with great severity, might this not improve the quality of his work? And if by our means books were to become stronger, richer, and more varied, that would be an end worth reaching.”

PeopleIfsKindMeanBookEndsMightWould BeReadingFeltBehindsQualityOpinionJudgingCriticismStrongerPressesReachingLiterary CriticismSeverityLove Of ReadingErratic
Book:ON READING: Le plaisir de lire
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“If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their sense. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. Humanity goes. Money making becomes so important that they must work by night as well as by day. Health goes. And so competitive do they become that they will not share their work with others though they have more themselves. What then remains of a human being who has lost sight, sound, and sense of proportion? Only a cripple in a cave.”

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Author:Virginia Woolf
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“Without those forerunners, Jane Austen and the Brontes and George Eliot could no more have written than Shakespeare could have written without Marlowe, or Marlowe without Chaucer, or Chaucer without those forgotten poets who paved the ways and tamed the natural savagery of the tongue. For 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.”

PeopleThinkingWayYearsBodyVoiceNaturalCommonBehindsWrittenPoetBirthMassForgottenTongueOutcomesSolitaryMasterpieceJaneAustenSavageryTamedEliotForerunnersBronteChaucerMarlowe
Book:A Room of One's Own
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“Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.”

PeopleFriendshipFriendsMy FriendsPriestsReal FriendsMy Best FriendBest FriendMy FriendshipFriends ForeverAbout FriendshipLove And FriendshipFriendship LoveFriendship MemoriesOne Line FriendshipBest FriendshipFriendship DayCute FriendshipInspirational FriendshipFriend LoveGreat FriendshipFunny FriendshipHappy FriendshipHappy Friendship DayBffJust FriendsSweet FriendshipFunny Best FriendReally Cute Best FriendShort FriendBest EverCute Best FriendCute FriendUnique FriendshipShort Best FriendSweet FriendFriendship ForeverAmazing FriendshipGifts From FriendsNice FriendNice FriendshipBff ForeverValued FriendsRomantic Friendship
Book:The Waves
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“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”

PeopleIfsInspirationalInspirationLyingHonestyEthicsAddictionEmpoweringTelling The TruthAbout YourselfHonest TruthTruth And HonestyHonesty IntegrityTruth HonestyHonesty And IntegrityTruth Be ToldHonest And IntegrityTelling LiesFinding Out The TruthHonesty InspirationalTruth To Yourself
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)
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“Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)
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“For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come over her, If he were with me now what would he say? --some days, some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came back in the middle of St. James's Park on a fine morning--indeed they did.”

PeopleIfsYearsMightMorningMiddleFineLettersSightSticksRewardsParksDryBitternessPeter
Book:The Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf - Volume II - Between the Acts, Mrs Dalloway, Orlando
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“Yet, she said to herself, form the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would say they wanted nothing but this--love; while the women, judging from her own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we want; there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than this; yet it is also beautiful and necessary.”

PeopleIfsWantHas BeensSaidFeelingsWantedBeautifulFormJudgingTenRoseNineDawnTediousWreathsInhumaneOdes
Book:Ao farol: To the lighthouse: Edição bilíngue português - inglês
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“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.”

PeopleWritingVoiceSecretFamePraiseBlameMeetingsIllAdmireTransactionsChatterWriting Poetry
Book:Orlando: A Biography
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“To pursue truth with such astonishing lack of consideration for other people's feelings, to rend the thin veils of civilisation so wantonly, so brutally, was to her so horrible an outrage of human decency that, without replying, dazed and blinded, she bend her head as if to let her pelt f jagged hail, the drench of dirty water, bespatter her unrebuked.”

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Author:Virginia Woolf
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“Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning.”

PeopleIfsGivingMindBookWould BeAsksFictionExpectationsPrejudiceAskingBeing TrueDividedBiographiesAdmirableFlatteringOpen MindednessPreconceptions
Book:ON READING: Le plaisir de lire
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“Other people have faces; Susan and Jinny have faces; they are here. Their world is the real world. The things they lift are heavy. They say Yes, they say No; whereas I shift and change and am seen through in a second. If they meet a housemaid she looks at them without laughing. But she laughs at me. They know what to say if spoken to. They laugh really; they get angry really; while I have to look first and do what other people do when they have done it.”

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Book:The Collected Novels of Virginia Woolf - Volume I - The Years, The Waves
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“A thing there was that mattered; a thing, wreathed about with chatter, defaced, obscured in her own life, let drop every day in corruption, lies, chatter. This he had preserved. Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death.”

PeopleFeelingsLyingEmbraceCommunicateCorruptionReachingCentreImpossibilityDefianceRaptureFadedClosenessChatter
Book:Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition
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