Quotes from Virginia Woolf

For her own self-satisfaction was it that she wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her, "O Mrs. Ramsay! dear Mrs. Ramsay . . . Mrs. Ramsay, of course!" and need her and send for her and admire her? Was it not secretly this that she wanted

Me atrevería a decir que Anon, que escribió tantos poemas sin firmarlos, era una mujer.

Nothing should be named lest by doing so we change it. Let it exist, this bank, this beauty, and I, for one instant, steeped in pleasure.

It is ten years since Virginia Woolf published her last volume of collected essays, THE COMMON READER: SECOND SERIES. At the time of her death she was already engaged in getting together essays for a further volume, which she proposed to publish in the autumn of 1941 or the spring Of 1942. She also intended to publish a new book of short stories, including in it some or all of MONDAY OR TUESDAY, which has been long out of print. She left

They would, she thought, going on again, however long they lived, come back to this night; this moon; this wind; this house: and to her too. It flattered her, where she was most susceptible of flattery, to think how, wound about in their hearts, however long they lived she would be woven...

Kokia gyvenimo prasm?? Tai ir viskas - paprastas klausimas, slenkant metams žmog? vis labiau apninkantis. Didysis apreiškimas taip ir neat?jo. Didysis apreiškimas, matyt, apskritai niekada neateina. Esama tik kasdienini? stebukl?li?, nušvitim?, tamsoje netik?tai ?žiebiam? degtuk?, kaip štai dabar.

It seemed a mere toss-up whether she said, 'I love you, or whether she said, 'I love the beech-trees,' or only 'I love--I love.

las obras maestras no son logros aislados y solitarios, son el resultado de muchos años de pensamiento en común, del pensamiento colectivo de muchas personas

I raged, and woke to hear the rain.

Los ojos de los demás, nuestras prisiones; sus pensamientos, nuestras jaulas.

She had a perfectly clear notion of what she wanted. Her emotions were all on the surface. Beneath, she was very shrewd—a far better judge of character than Sally, for instance, and with it all, purely feminine; with that extraordinary gift, that woman's gift, of making a world of her own wherever she happened to be.

toda a pompa é construída sobre a corrupção; como o esqueleto jaz por baixo da carne; como nós, que dançamos e cantamos na superfície, ficaremos embaixo; como o veludo púrpura se transforma em pó; como o anel (aqui Orlando, inclinando sua lanterna, apanharia um anel de ouro faltando uma pedra que rolara para um canto) perdia seu rubi e como o olho, que fora tão radiante, deixara de brilhar.

She was, on the contrary, inclined to be silent; she shrank from expressing herself even in talk, let alone in writing.

Affondava come una lama nelle cose; e al tempo stesso ne rimaneva fuori, osservava. Aveva l'impressione costante, anche ora guardando i taxi, di essere lontana, lontanissima, in mare aperto, e sola. Sempre aveva l'impressione che vivere, anche un solo giorno, fosse molto, molto pericoloso

Los omóplatos de Rhoda casi se tocan, en el centro de la espalda, como las alas de una pequeña mariposa. Mientras contempla los números de tiza, su pensamiento se aloja en esos blancos círculos. Pasa a través de las alzadas blancas y penetra en el vacío sola. No tienen sentido para ella. Ni ella tiene respuesta para ellos. Rhoda no tiene cuerpo y los otros sí.

As we are a doomed race, chained to a sinking ship (her favourite reading as a girl was Huxley and Tyndall, and they were fond of these nautical metaphors), as the whole thing is a bad joke, let us, at any rate, do our part; mitigate the sufferings of our fellow-prisoners (Huxley again); decorate the dungeon with flowers and air cushions; be as decent as we possibly can.

Y hay una mujer detrás del mostrador; preferiría leer su historia verdadera antes que la centésima quincuagésima vida de Napoleón o el septuagésimo estudio de Keats y su uso de la inversión miltoniana que en este momento están redactando el viejo profesor Z y sus homólogos.

Our minds are all threaded together… Any live mind today is of the very same stuff as Plato's & Euripides. It is only a continuation & development of the same thing. It is this common mind that binds the whole world together; & all the world is mind.

Here she took up her lodging and began instantly to look about her for what she had come in search of–that is to say, life and a lover.

So the room was an attic; the bed narrow; and lying there reading, for she slept badly, she could not dispel a virginity preserved through childbirth which clung to her like a sheet. Lovely in girlhood, suddenly there came a moment...

Essi divenivano parte di quell'universo irreale, ma fervido e intenso, che è il mondo visto attraverso occhi d'amore.

Do not, in your affluence and plenty,' you seem to say, 'pass me by.' 'Stop,' you say. 'Ask me what I suffer.' Let me then create you. (You have done as much for me.)

Poiché una volta che il baco dei libri si è impadronito del sistema umano, lo indebolisce tanto che esso diventa una facile preda per quell'altro flagello, quello che si annida in fondo ai calamai e i cui germi pullulano in cima alla penna. La vittima incomincia a scrivere.

How many men in a thousand million, he asked himself, reach Z after all?