Virginia Woolf Quotes, Children Quotes, Average Quotes

The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman. It is only when we know what were the conditions of the average woman's life - the number of children, whether she had money of her own, if she had a room to herself, whether she had help bringing up her family, if she had servants, whether part of the housework was her task - it is only when we can measure the way of life and experience made possible to the ordinary woman that we can account for the success or failure of the extraordinary woman as a writer.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Children Quotes , Average Quotes

He called her a melon, a pineapple, an olive tree, an emerald, and a fox in the snow all in the space of three seconds; he did not know whether he had heard her, tasted her, seen her, or all three together.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Space Quotes , Snow 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

When she read just now to James, 'and there were numbers of soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets,' and his eyes darkened, she thought, why should they grow up, and lose all that?

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Growing Up Quotes , Grows Quotes

Waves of hands, hesitations at street corners, someone dropping a cigarette into the gutter-all are stories. But which is the true story? That I do not know. Hence I keep my phrases hung like clothes in a cupboard, waiting for some one to wear them. Thus waiting, thus speculating, making this note and then an· other I do not cling to life. I shall be brushed like a bee from a sunflower. My philosophy, always accumulating, welling up moment by moment, runs like quicksilver a dozen ways at once.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Running Quotes , Philosophy Quotes

Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?--startling, unexpected, unknown?

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Heart Quotes , Elderly Quotes

I have sometimes dreamt ... that when the Day of Judgment dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards -- their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble -- the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when He sees us coming with our books under our arms, "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them here. They have loved reading.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Book Quotes , Reading Quotes

A light here required a shadow there.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Light Quotes

People only become writers if they can't find the one book they've always wanted to read.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Book Quotes , People Quotes

Would there be trees if we didn't see them?

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Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Skeletons Quotes , Effort Quotes

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.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Life Quotes , Lying Quotes

So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Morning Quotes , Clouds Quotes

For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Book Quotes , Judging Quotes

Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Numbness Quotes , People Quotes

Men felt a chill in their hearts; a damp in their minds. In a desperate effort to snuggle their feelings into some sort of warmth,one subterfuge was tried after anothersentences swelled, adjectives multiplied, lyrics became epics.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Heart Quotes , Epic Quotes

O how blessed it would be never to marry, or grow old; but to spend one's life innocently and indifferently among the trees and rivers which alone can keep one cool and childlike in the midst of the troubles of the world!

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Blessed Quotes , Rivers Quotes

There is no doubt in my mind, that I have found out how to begin (at 40) to say something in my own voice.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Voice Quotes , Doubt Quotes

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Beauty Quotes , Beautiful Quotes

writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial.

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Tags : Virginia Woolf Quotes , Writing Quotes , Profound Quotes