Virginia Woolf Quotes, Stories Quotes, Substance Quotes

Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe, which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain and logical story, so that when one matter is despatched—love for instance—we go on, in an orderly manner, to the next.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Stories Quotes , Substance Quotes

The truer the facts the better the fiction.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Fiction Quotes

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.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Fall Quotes , Sea Quotes

The most extraordinary thing about writing is that when you've struck the right vein, tiredness goes. It must be an effort, thinking wrong.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Writing Quotes , Thinking Quotes

Books should stand on their own feet ... If they need shoring up by a preface here, an introduction there, they have no more right to exist than a table that needs a wad of paper under one leg in order to stand steady.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Book Quotes , Feet Quotes

How remorseless life is!

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Life Is Quotes

There is a sadness at the back of life which some people do not attempt to mitigate. Entirely aware of their own standing in the shadow, and yet alive to every tremor and gleam of existence, there they endure.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Sadness Quotes , People Quotes

For it is a curious fact that though human beings have such imperfect means of communication, that they can only say 'good to eat' when they mean 'beautiful' and the other way about, they will yet endure ridicule and misunderstanding rather than keep any experience to themselves.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Communication Quotes

There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Stars Quotes , Night Quotes

And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Horse Quotes , Men Quotes

Does Nature supplement what man advanced? Or does she complete what he began?

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Men Quotes , Doe Quotes

Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Views Quotes , Orlando Quotes

Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Writing Quotes , Soul Quotes

It was the intimacy, a sort of spiritual suppleness, when mind prints upon mind indelibly.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Spiritual Quotes , Mind Quotes

He was a thorough good sort; a bit limited; a bit thick in the head; yes; but a thorough good sort. Whatever he took up he did in the same matter-of-fact sensible way; without a touch of imagination, without a sparkle of brilliancy, but with the inexplicable niceness of his type.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Imagination Quotes , Matter Quotes

Thus Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Joyce partly spoil their books for women readers by their display of self-conscious virility; and Mr. Hemingway, but much less violently, follows suit.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Book Quotes , Self Quotes

I have lost friends, some by death...others by sheer inability to cross the street.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Funny Quotes , Friendship Quotes

...the problem of space remained, she thought, taking up her brush again. It glared at her. The whole mass of the picture was poised upon that weight. Beautiful and bright it should be on the surface, feathery and evanescent, one colour melting into another like the colours on a butterfly's wing; but beneath the fabric must be clamped together with bolts of iron.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Butterfly Quotes

[Final diary entry:] Occupation is essential. And now with some pleasure I find that it's seven; and must cook dinner. Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Writing Quotes , Thinking Quotes

To stand in a great bookshop crammed with books so new that their pages almost stick together, and the gilt on their backs is still fresh, has an excitement no less delightful than the old excitement of the second-hand bookstall.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Book Quotes , Hands Quotes