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Virginia Woolf Quotes

Browse 106 quotes about Virginia Woolf.

Virginia Woolf Quotes

“Something now leaves me; something goes from me to meet that figure who is coming, and assures me that I know him before I see who it is. How curiously one is changed by the addition, even at a distance, of a friend. How useful an office one's friends perform when they recall us. Yet how painful to be recalled, to be mitigated, to have one's self adulterated, mixed up, become part of another. As he approaches I become not myself but Neville mixed with somebody - with whom? - with Bernard? Yes, it is Bernard, and it is to Bernard that I shall put the question, Who am I?”

IdentityFriendsVirginia WoolfThe Waves
Book:The Waves
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“Unavoidably and in many cases, sadly, the woman artist must grope her way through the emotional cesspool of her own outrage, her fear, and her anxiety at being treated on the whole as a member of a stereotyped group in society rather than being recognized as an individual. All the problems of the creative lifestyle are doubly difficult and doubly debilitating because as an artist she must first establish herself as a person. Her view of the world, her concern for others, her drive for the tangible creative expressions of the images in her mind are tangled with these negative, frustrating emotions which by their very nature drain her creative powers.”

WomenCreativityFeminismFeministVirginia WoolfWoman ArtistFemale ArtistFemale Creative
Book:Just This Side of Madness: Creativity and the Drive to Create
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“Shakespeare's sister as I had made it, is that any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty.”

WomenPoetry LifeVirginia Woolf
Book:Virginia Woolf - A Room of One’s Own
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“I don't want to get landed in an affair which might get beyond my control before I knew where I was. [...] But darling, Virginia is not the sort of person one thinks of in that way. There is something incongruous and almost indecent in the idea. I have gone to bed with her (twice), but that's all. Now you know all about it, and I hope I haven't shocked you [...]”

LoveSexLettersLove AffairVirginia WoolfLove LettersVita Sackville WestLove AffairsHarold Nicolson
Author:Vita Sackville-West
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“I simply adore Virginia Woolf, and so would you. You would fall quite flat before her charm and personality. [...] Mrs. Woolf is so simple: she does give the impression of something big. She is utterly unaffected: there is no outward adornments -- she dresses quite atrociously. At first you think she is plain; then a sort of spiritual beauty imposes itself on you, and you find a fascination in watching her. She was smarter last night; that is to say, the woolen orange stockings were replaced by yellow silk ones, but she still wore the pumps. She is both detached and human, silent till she wants to say something, and then says it supremely well. She is quite old. I've rarely taken such a fancy to anyone, and I think she likes me. At least, she's asked me to Richmond where she lives. Darling, I have quite lost my heart.”

LoveLove QuotesLettersVirginia WoolfVita Sackville West
Author:Vita Sackville-West
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“I enjoyed your intimate letter from the Dolomites. It gave me a great deal of pain – which is I've no doubt the first stage of intimacy – no friends, no heart, only an indifferent head. Never mind: I enjoyed your abuse very much [...] But I will not go on else I should write you a really intimate letter, and then you would dislike me, more, even more, than you do.”

LoveLove QuotesLettersVirginia WoolfLove LettersVita Sackville West
Author:Virginia Woolf
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“What I should really like to do would be to take you to some absurdly romantic place, ― vain dream, alas! What with Leonard and the Press ― Besides, by romantic I mean Persia or China, not Tintagel or Kergarnec. Oh what fun it would be, and Virginia's eyes would grow rounder and rounder, and presently it would all flow like water from a Sparklets siphon, turned into beautiful bubbles.”

LoveLettersVirginia WoolfLove LettersVita Sackville West
Author:Vita Sackville-West
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“I've just stopped talking to you. It seems so strange. It's perfectly peaceful here--they're playing bowls--I'd just put flowers in your room. And there you sit with the bombs falling around you. What can one say-- except that I love you and I've got to live through this strange quiet evening thinking of you sitting there alone. Dearest-- let me have a line... You have given me such happiness...”

LettersVirginia WoolfVita Sackville West
Book:The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. Five: 1932-1935
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“Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire— Was it you who wrote the review? I thought I recognized it— Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. Up to a few hundred years ago no one would have disagreed with this, because most stories were, in some sense, fantasy. Back in the middle ages, people wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing in Death as a character who would have a role to play in the story. Echoes of this can be seen in Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, which hark back to a much earlier type of storytelling. The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest works of literature, and by the standard we would apply now— a big muscular guys with swords and certain godlike connections— That’s fantasy. The national literature of Finland, the Kalevala. Beowulf in England. I cannot pronounce Bahaghvad-Gita but the Indian one, you know what I mean. The national literature, the one that underpins everything else, is by the standards that we apply now, a work of fantasy. Now I don’t know what you’d consider the national literature of America, but if the words Moby Dick are inching their way towards this conversation, whatever else it was, it was also a work of fantasy. Fantasy is kind of a plasma in which other things can be carried. I don’t think this is a ghetto. This is, fantasy is, almost a sea in which other genres swim. Now it may be that there has developed in the last couple of hundred years a subset of fantasy which merely uses a different icongraphy, and that is, if you like, the serious literature, the Booker Prize contender. Fantasy can be serious literature. Fantasy has often been serious literature. You have to fairly dense to think that Gulliver’s Travels is only a story about a guy having a real fun time among big people and little people and horses and stuff like that. What the book was about was something else. Fantasy can carry quite a serious burden, and so can humor. So what you’re saying is, strip away the trolls and the dwarves and things and put everyone into modern dress, get them to agonize a bit, mention Virginia Woolf a few times, and there! Hey! I’ve got a serious novel. But you don’t actually have to do that.”

FantasyScience FictionMythologyDragonsInterviewMidwestVirginia WoolfJungian PsychologyMale MenopauseThe Onion
Author:Terry Pratchett
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“ადრეული აპრილის ნათელი ღამე იდგა. უთვალავი ვარსკვლავის ციმციმი ახალი მთვარის ვერცხლისფერ შუქს შერწყმოდა, რასაც, თავის მხრივ, ქუჩის ლამპიონების განათება ამყარებდა. და ეს შუქი განუზომლად ამშვენებდა ადამიანების სახეებს და მისტერ ვრენის ხუროთმოძღვრებას. ყველაფერი თავისი უფაქიზესი იერით გამოკვეთილიყო, და მაინც, ისეთი გრძნობა იქმნებოდა, თითქოს სადაცაა ყველაფერი ერთიანად გალღვებოდა, რომ არა რომელიღაც ვერცხლის წვეთი, რომელმაც ყველა ხაზი გამოკვეთა და სული შთაბერა. განა საუბარი ასეთივე არ უნდა იყოსო? – ფიქრობდა ორლანდო (და სულელურ ოცნებებს მიეცა); განა ასეთი არ უნდა იყოს საზოგადოება, ასეთი არ უნდა იყოს მეგობრობა, ასეთი არ უნდა იყოს სიყვარული? რადგან უფალმა უწყის რატომ, მაინცდამაინც მაშინ, როცა ადამიანური ურთიერთობების რწმენა გვეკარგება, რაღაც, თავლის და ხეების თუ თივის ზვინის და ოთხთვალა ფორნის შემთხვევითი განლაგება ისეთ სრულყოფილ სიმბოლოს წარმოგვიდგენს იმისას, რაც მიუწვდომელია, რომ ისევ თავიდან ვიწყებთ ძიებას.”

LoveNightStarsFriendshipSocietyVirginia WoolfOrlando
Book:Orlando
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“Manchmal, wenn sie inmitten der staubigen Regale der Bibliothek stand, stellte Eloise sich vor, Virginia Woolf stünde neben ihr. Flüsternd, beinahe spöttisch, würde sie vielleicht sagen: »Schreib, Eloise. Schreib, bevor dir jemand einreden kann, dass du es nicht kannst – am wenigsten du selbst.«”

InspirationalWritingFreedomCreativitySelf ConfidenceVirginia Woolf
Book:The Score of our Life: ein Liebesroman
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“[...] como o romance tem essa correspondência com a vida real, seus valores são, numa certa medida, os da vida real. Mas é óbvio que os valores das mulheres diferem, com frequência, dos que foram feitos pelo outro sexo; isso acontece, naturalmente. E, no entanto, são os valores masculinos que prevalecem. Falando cruamente, o futebol e o esporte são "importantes"; o culto da moda e a compra de roupas são "insignificantes". E esses valores são inevitavelmente transferidos da vida para a ficção. Esse é um livro importante, pressupõe o crítico, porque lida com a guerra. Esse é um livro insignificante, pois lida com os sentimentos das mulheres numa sala de visitas.”

WomenNovelVirginia Woolf
Book:A Room of One’s Own
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“Ma che importava, allora, ella si domandava procedendo verso Bond Street, che importava che ella dovesse, ineluttabilmente e completamente, cessare di vivere? Tanto fervore di vita sarebbe continuato senza di lei; se ne risentiva forse? o non era piuttosto consolante la certezza che la morte poneva fine a tutto; ma che in un certo modo, nelle vie di Londra, nella gran marea delle cose, qui, là, ella sopravviveva, Peter sopravviveva, e vivevano uno nell'altro, e lei era parte -l'avrebbe giurato- degli alberi a Bourton; di quel brutto casamento laggiù, trasandato e tutto a pezzi e bocconi; parte di gente che non aveva mai visto al mondo; distesa come un velo di nebbia tra le creature che le erano più amiche, che si protendevano a sollevarla così come aveva visto gli alberi sollevare la bruma tra i rami; eppure si estendeva quanto mai lontano, quella vita che era poi lei”

NovelItalianVirginia WoolfMrs Dalloway
Book:Mrs. Dalloway
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“They said, 'Come to tea and let us comfort you.' But it is no good. One must be crucified on one's own private cross. It is a strange fact that a terrible pain in the heart can be interrupted by a little pain in the fourth toe of the right foot. I know that V. will not come across the garden from the lodge, & yet I look in that direction for her. I know that she is drowned & yet I listen for her to come in at the door. I know that it is the last page & yet I turn it over. There is no limit to one's stupidity and selfishness.”

DeathGriefMemoryGrievingBereavementVirginia WoolfLeonard Woolf
Author:Leonard Woolf
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“Feelings that would not have disgraced a leader who, now that the snow has begun to fall and the mountain-top is covered in mist, knows that he must lay himself down and die before morning comes, stole upon him, paling the colour of his eyes, giving him, even in the two minutes of his turn on the terrace, the bleached look of withered old age. Yet he would not die lying down; he would find some crag of rock, and there, his eyes fixed on the storm, trying to the end to pierce the darkness, he would die standing. He would never reach R.”

ThinkingPhilosophyMountainMetaphorBrilliantThoughtSnowProseBeautiful WritingVirginia Woolf
Book:To the Lighthouse
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“Yet 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.”

ReadingBooksVirginia WoolfGenres
Book:How Should One Read a Book?
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“As Virginia Woolf argues in her 1929 feminist manifesto, A Room of One’s Own, this imbalance should not come as a surprise. Woolf would agree that solitude is a prerequisite for original and creative thought, but she would then add that women had been systematically denied both the literal and figurative room of their own in which to cultivate this state. To Woolf, in other words, solitude is not a pleasant diversion, but instead a form of liberation from the cognitive oppression that results in its absence.”

FeminismSolitudeVirginia Woolf
Book:Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
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“More than anything, I began to hate women writers. Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf. Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte. I began to resent Emily, Anne, and Charlotte—my old friends—with a terrifying passion. They were not only talented; they were brave, a trait I admired more than anything but couldn't seem to possess. The world that raised these women hadn't allowed them to write, yet they had spun fiery novels in spite of all the odds. Meanwhile, I was failing with all the odds tipped in my favor. Here I was, living out Virginia Woolf's wildest feminist fantasy. I was in a room of my own. The world was no longer saying, "Write? What's the good of your writing?" but was instead saying "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me.”

FeminismFemale EmpowermentJane AustenVirginia WoolfFemale WritersMary ShelleyFemale AuthorsGeorge EliotCharlotte BronteElizabeth Browning
Book:The Madwoman Upstairs
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“But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me? Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.”

LifeFeminismTraditionWomanVirginia WoolfConvention
Book:Eat, Pray, Love
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“[..] And here, suddenly, was Woolf's own talented sister. The one who survived. The sister who painted. My first thought was: how sad. What fate could be worse than to be in close proximity to genius, capable of recognizing it, but, alas, something less-than? And Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell must have been less-than, because I'd barely heard of her. How terrible, and sadly typical, that in my long pursuit of women artists I'd apparently learned nothing. Least of all, that they are all too easily lost to time, a condition rarely any reflection on their talent.”

ArtFeminismArt HistoryVirginia WoolfVanessa Bell
Book:Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History
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“My belief is that if we live another century or so — I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals — and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky, too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton's bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down.”

HopeFeminismVirginia WoolfShakespeare S Sister
Book:A Room of One’s Own
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“Anna held up a small black-bound memorandum book. Cordelia hadn’t even seen her retrieve it. They strode out of the bedroom, Anna waving the book over her head in triumph. “This,” she announced, “will hold the answers to all our questions.” Matthew looked up, his eyes fever-bright. “Is this your list of conquests?” “Of course not,” Anna declared. “It’s a memorandum book… about my conquests. That is an important but meaningful distinction.” Anna flipped through the book. There were many pages, and many names written in a bold, sprawling hand. “Hmm, let me see. Katherine, Alicia, Virginia—a very promising writer, you should look out for her work, James—Mariane, Virna, Eugenia—” “Not my sister Eugenia?” Thomas nearly upended his cake. “Oh, probably not,” Anna said. “Laura, Lily… ah, Hypatia. Well, it was a brief encounter, and I suppose you might say she seduced me.…” “Well, that hardly seems fair,” said James. “Like someone solving a case before Sherlock Holmes. If I were you I would feel challenged, as if to a duel.” Matthew chuckled. Anna gave James a dark look. “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said. “Is it working?” said James. “Possibly,” said Anna, regarding the book. Cordelia couldn’t help but wonder: Was Ariadne’s name in there? Was she considered a conquest now, or something—someone—else?”

Virginia WoolfSherlock HolmesJames HerondaleCordelia CarstairsMatthew FairchildAnna LightwoodLily ChenConquestsAriadne BridgestockHypatia Vex
Book:Chain of Gold
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“La marea comienza a descender. Los árboles afirman nuevamente sus raíces en la tierra. Las olas de sangre que golpeaban mis costados se apaciguan y mi corazón echa anclas, semejante a un barco cuyas velas se deslizan, cayendo suavemente sobre el puente inmaculado. El juego ha concluido. Es hora de ir a tomar el té”

Literary FictionQuote About LifeVirginia WoolfCitas De La VidaLiterary QuotesQuotes About ChangeCitas LiterariasLas Olas
Book:The Waves
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“Per secoli le donne hanno avuto la funzione di specchi dal potere magico e delizioso di riflettere raddoppiata la figura dell’uomo. (…) Qualunque possa essere il loro uso nelle civiltà civilizzate, gli specchi sono indispensabili per ogni azione violenta ed eroica. Ecco perché Napoleone e Mussolini sostengono con tanta veemenza l’inferiorità delle donne, perché se queste non fossero inferiori, gli uomini cesserebbero di ingrandirsi. Questo serve a spiegare in parte, il bisogno che tanto spesso gli uomini sentono delle donne. E serve a spiegare la misura del loro disagio se colpiti dalla critica femminile; l’impossibilità per la donna di dire questo libro è brutto, questo dipinto manca di personalità, o qualunque altra cosa, senza suscitare molto più dolore e molta più rabbia di un uomo che esprimesse le stesse critiche. Perchè se lei comincia a dire la verità, la figura nello specchio si rimpicciolisce; viene eliminata la sua idoneità alla vita. Come potrà continuare a giudicare, civilizzare gli indigeni, emanare leggi, scrivere libri,vestirsi a festa e sproloquiare ai banchetti, se non riesce a vedersi a colazione e a cena almeno il doppio di quanto è realmente?”

LifeHumanityBooksWomanLibriVirginia WoolfDonne
Book:A Room of One’s Own
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“Și în mine se înaltă valul. Se umflă. Își arcuiește spinarea. Simt un dor proaspăt, care se cablează ca armăsarul mândru pe care călărețul îl lovește cu pintenii și-l strunește apoi. Tu, care mă porți în spinare, spune-mi ce dușman e acela care se vede venind către noi, în timp ce tropotul nostru răsună pe caldarâm? E moartea. Moartea e dușmanul. Împotriva ei mă năpustesc cu lancea culcată, cu pletele fluturând în urma mea ca pletele unui tânăr, ca pletele lui Percival când galopa în India. Înfig pintenii în coastele calului. Neînfrânat si dârz , mă năpustesc împotriva ta, Moarte! Valurile se spărgeau de țărm.”

ViataVirginia WoolfMoarte
Author:Virginia Woolf
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“Al final de la novela descubríamos que su obsesión por «el cielo y el océano fundidos» como «realidad del Paraíso» era en realidad su pulsión de tánatos, es decir, su deseo de muerte, es decir, sus ganas de suicidarse, es decir, sus fantasías de morir ahogada en el mar como las fantasías de morir ahogada en el mar de Rosalía de Castro, hasta lograrlo como Virginia Woolf.”

LiteraturaVirginia WoolfEscrituraRoberto BolañoBolañoSensiniNisisenAlexandre AlphonseRosalía De Castro
Book:Nisisen
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