Virginia Woolf quotes - page 16

Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money. (Virginia Woolf)
Some slight haziness there may have been, as if a few dark drops had fallen into the clear pool of memory; certain things had become a little dimmed; but that was all. View quote
Virginia Woolf
His form combined in one the strength of a man and a woman's grace. View quote
Virginia Woolf
We have dined well. The fish, the veal cutlets, the wine have blunted the sharp tooth of egotism. Anxiety is at rest. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Over the obscure man is poured the merciful suffusion of darkness. None knows where he goes or comes. He may seek the truth and speak it; he alone is free; he alone is truthful, he alone is at peace. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Our patience wore rather thin. Visitors do tend to chafe one, though impeccable as friends. View quote
Virginia Woolf
At the age of thirty, or thereabouts, this young Nobleman had not only had every experience that life has to offer, but had seen the worthlessness of them all. View quote
Virginia Woolf
We may take advantage of this pause in the narrative to make certain statements. Orlando had become a woman - there is no denying it. But in every other respect, Orlando remained precisely as he had been. The change of sex, though it altered their future, did nothing whatever to alter their identity. View quote
Virginia Woolf
The hostess is our modern Sibyl. She is a witch who lays her guests under a spell. View quote
Virginia Woolf
We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the proper stuff of fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it. (Virginia Woolf)
The strongest natures, when they are influenced, submit the most unreservedly: it is perhaps a sign of their strength. View quote
Virginia Woolf
There were the eternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Here on this ring of grass we have sat together, bound by the tremendous power of some inner compulsion. The trees wave, the clouds pass. The time approaches when these soliloquies shall be shared. View quote
Virginia Woolf
The reign of chaos is over. He has imposed order. Knives cut again. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Two things alone remained to him in which he now put any trust: dogs and nature; an elk-hound and a rose bush. The world, in all its variety, life in all its complexity, had shrunk to that. Dogs and a bush were the whole of it. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Life for both sexes - and I looked at them, shouldering their way along the pavement - is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion as we are, it calls for confidence in oneself. Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Yet there are moments when the walls of the mind grow thin. View quote
Virginia Woolf
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. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes. View quote
Virginia Woolf
I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. (Virginia Woolf)
She read everything. View quote
Virginia Woolf
They can because they think they can. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Thoughts are divine. View quote
Virginia Woolf
The moment was all; the moment was enough. View quote
Virginia Woolf