Quotes from Virginia Woolf

In other words, now that she had rid herself of falsehood, that young woman had only to be herself. Ah, but what is herself? I mean, what is a woman? I assure you, I do not know, I do not believe that you know.

Alas! a woman that attempts the pen, Such a presumptuous creature is esteemed, The fault can by no virtue be redeemed. They tell us we mistake our sex and way; Good breeding, fashion, dancing, dressing, play, Are the accomplishments we should desire; To write, or read, or think, or to enquire, Would cloud our beauty, and exhaust our time, And interrupt the conquests of our prime, Whilst the dull manage of a servile house Is held by some our utmost art and use.

her generation of novelists, including Forster, Lawrence, and Joyce, from their Edwardian predecessors, Bennett, Galsworthy, and Wells.

How resilient I am; and how fatalistic now; and how little I mind and how much; and how good my novel is; and how tired I am this morning; and how I like praise; and how full of ideas I am; and Tom and Stephen came to tea, and Ray and William dine; and I forgot to describe my interesting talk with Nessa about my criticizing her children; and I left out—I forget what.

The weight, the pace, the stride of a man's mind are too unlike her own for her to lift anything substantial from him successfully. The ape is too distant to be sedulous. Perhaps

Pois pode haver revelação mais terrível de que se saber no momento presente? O fato de sobrevivermos ao choque só é possível porque o passado nos protege de um lado e o futuro de outro.

How Shakespeare loathed humanity—the putting on of clothes, the getting of children, the sordidity of the mouth and the belly! This was now revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of words. The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair. Dante the same. Aeschylus (translated) the same.

In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing… was struck into stability.

Married against their will, kept in one room, and to one occupation, how could a dramatist give a full or interesting or truthful account of them? Love was the only possible interpreter. The poet was forced to be passionate or bitter, unless indeed he chose to 'hate women', which meant more often than not that he was unattractive to them.

El tiempo vuela, oh sí; el verano pronto estará aquí; y todavía soy capaz de pasmarme ante ello. El mundo volverá a dar media vuelta, y pondrá su verde y su azul muy cerca de mis ojos.

Miss La Trobe was pacing to and fro between the leaning birch trees. One hand was deep stuck in her jacket pocket; the other held a foolscap sheet. She was reading what was written there. She had the look of a commander pacing his deck. The leaning graceful trees with black bracelets circling the silver bark were distant about a ship's length.

She wore ear-rings, and a silver-green mermaid's dress. Lolloping on the waves and braiding her tresses she seemed, having that gift still; to be; to exist; to sum it all up in the moment as she passed; turned, caught her scarf in some other woman's dress, unhitched it, laughed, all with the most perfect ease and air of a creature floating in its element. But age had brushed her; even as a mermaid might behold in her glass the setting sun on some very clear evening over the waves.

London has swallowed up many millions of young men called Smith; thought nothing of fantastic Christian names like Septimus with which their parents have thought to distinguish them.

And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be, are full of trees and changing leaves

Hänellä oli tuo kallisarvoinen kyky, aito naisellinen kyky, tehdä maailma omakseen missä tahansa olikin.

To be flung into the sea, to be washed hither and thither, and driven about the roots of the world—the idea was incoherently delightful. She sprang up, and began moving about the room, bending and thrusting aside the chairs and tables as if she were indeed striking through the waters. He watched her with pleasure; she seemed to be cleaving a passage for herself, and dealing triumphantly with the obstacles which would hinder their passage through life.

Would that we might spare the reader what is to come and say to him in so many words, Orlando died and was buried. But here, alas, Truth, Candour, and Honesty, the austere Gods, who keep watch and ward by the inkpot of the biographer, cry No!

Ä°nsan a??kken baÅŸkalar?n?n kay?ts?zl??? çok garibine gider.(s.40)

What has seven editions (the book had already gone into no less) got to do with the value of it? 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.

Nothing is so strange when one is in love as the complete indifference of other people.

To be loved by Susan would be to be impaled by a bird's sharp beak, to be nailed to a barnyard door.

Knitting is the saving of life.

He's read nothing, thought nothing, felt nothing, he could hear her saying in that empathic voice which carried so much farther than she knew.

Yaz? yazan birinin cinsiyetini unutmamas? çok tehlikelidir. Kat?ks?z ve basit bir erkek ya da kad?n olmak tehlikelidir; kad?ns? erkek ya da erkeksi kad?nlar olmal?y?z. (...) Ä°nsan?n zihninde kad?nla erkek aras?nda bir iÅŸbirliÄŸi oluÅŸmal?d?r ki yarat?c?l?k tamamlanabilsin.