Virginia Woolf quotes - page 9

Now begins to rise in me the familiar rhythm; words that have lain dormant now lift, now toss their crests, and fall and rise, and falls again. I am a poet, yes. Surely I am a great poet. (Virginia Woolf)
To let oneself be carried on passively is unthinkable. View quote
Virginia Woolf
For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing. View quote
Virginia Woolf
I feel that by writing I am doing what is far more necessary than anything else. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Every face, every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned--in search of what? It is the same with books. What do we seek through millions of pages? View quote
Virginia Woolf
Still, life had a way of adding day to day. View quote
Virginia Woolf
All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Up here my eyes are green leaves, unseeing. View quote
Virginia Woolf
These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by. View quote
Virginia Woolf
I do not want to be admired. I want to give, to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions. (Virginia Woolf)
Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment. View quote
Virginia Woolf
My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness. View quote
Virginia Woolf
But why do I notice everything? She thought. Why must I think? She did not want to think. She wanted to force her mind to become a blank and lie back, and accept quietly, tolerantly, whatever came. View quote
Virginia Woolf
But Sasha was from Russia, where the sunsets are longer, the dawns less sudden and sentences are often left unfinished from doubt as how to best end them. View quote
Virginia Woolf
It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Literature is no one's private ground, literature is common ground; let us trespass freely and fearlessly and find our own way for ourselves. View quote
Virginia Woolf
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. View quote
Virginia Woolf
How far do our feelings take their colour from the dive underground? I mean, what is the reality of any feeling? View quote
Virginia Woolf
The most important thing is not to think very much about oneself. To investigate candidly the charge; but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to retaliate by going to the other extreme -- thinking too much. View quote
Virginia Woolf
... But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful... (Virginia Woolf)
Whenever you see a board up with "Trespassers will be prosecuted," trespass at once. View quote
Virginia Woolf
A million candles burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one. View quote
Virginia Woolf
At last she shut the book sharply, lay back, and drew a deep breath, expressive of the wonder which always marks the transition from the imaginary world to the real world. View quote
Virginia Woolf
Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. View quote
Virginia Woolf