Virginia Woolf Quotes

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With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes — one of the tragedies of married life.

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.

Virginia Woolf
For beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself.

Virginia Woolf
I doubt the capacity of the human animal for being dignified in ceremony.

Virginia Woolf
All great writers have, of course, an atmosphere in which they seem most at their ease and at their best; a mood of the general mind which they interpret and indeed almost discover, so that we come to read them rather for that than for any story or character or scene of seperate excellence.

Virginia Woolf
No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes than your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes

Virginia Woolf
In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.

Virginia Woolf
No, I'm not clever. I've always cared more for people than for ideas.

Virginia Woolf
It is only by putting it into words that I make it whole. This wholeness means that it has lost its power to hurt me; it gives me, perhaps because by doing so I take away the pain, a great delight to put the severed parts together

Virginia Woolf
It's the writing, not the being read, that excites me.

Virginia Woolf
Morgan has the artist's mind; he says the simple things that clever people don't say; I find him the best of critics for that reason. Suddenly out comes the obvious thing that one has overlooked.

Virginia Woolf
I see nothing. We may sink and settle on the waves. The sea will drum in my ears. The white petals will be darkened with sea water. They will float for a moment and then sink. Rolling over the waves will shoulder me under. Everything falls in a tremendous shower, dissolving me.

Virginia Woolf