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Virginia Woolf Quotes - Page 18

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Jealousy ... survives every other passion of mankind.

Jealousy ... survives every other passion of mankind.

Jealousy, Passion, Mankind

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

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.

Stress, Simple, Men

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

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.

Moving, Play, Giving

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.

Silly, Thinking, Sentimental

Virginia Woolf (2012). “Mrs. Dalloway - Broadview Edition”, p.191, Broadview Press

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.

Children, House, Anxiety

Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.4304, Delphi Classics

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

Writing, Tired, Lord

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

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

Character, People, Feelings

Her life was a tissue of vanity and deceit.

Lying, Vanity, Deceit

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

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.

Determination, Book, Writing

Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.37, HMH

...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.

Running, Simple, Air

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.

Running, Women, Mean

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

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.

Wall, Window Panes, Space

Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1969, Delphi Classics

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.

Past, White, Long

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

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

Dream, Memories, Exquisite

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

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.

Writing, Eye, Practice

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

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.

Thinking, Years, Voice

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

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

Fiction, Problem, Unsolved Problems

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

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

Writing, Voice, Secret

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

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.

Writing, Quality, Literature

1925 The Common Reader, 'The Modern Essay'.

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.

Life, Happiness, Independent

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

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

Eye, Writing, Practice

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.

Expression, Giving, Sound

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.

Years, Adequate, Strange

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

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.

Mother, Children, Lying

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

Lines slip easily down the accustomed grooves. The old designs are copied so glibly that we are half inclined to think them original, save for that very glibness.

Thinking, Design, Half

Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.3037, Delphi Classics

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