Quotes from Virginia Woolf

If one shuts one's eyes and thinks of the novel as a whole, it would seem to be a creation owning a certain looking-glass likeness to life, though of course with simplifications and distortions innumerable.

Posiblemente, cuando el profesor insistía con demasiado énfasis sobre la inferioridad de las mujeres, no era la inferioridad de éstas lo que le preocupaba, sino su propia superioridad. Era esto lo que protegía un tanto acaloradamente y con demasiada insistencia, porque para él era una joya del precio más incalculable.

Libertado da angústia do amor rechaçado, da vaidade recriminada e de todos os outros ferrões e espinhos com que as urtigas da vida o haviam ferido quando ambicionava a fama, mas que não podiam molestar quem desdenhava da glória, ele abriu os olhos, que tinham se mantido abertos o tempo todo mas só haviam visto pensamentos, e avistou sua casa, aninhada lá embaixo no vale.

Then she loomed up, filling the door, filling the room with the aroma, the prestige, the arrogance, the pomp, the pride of all the Dukes and Duchesses swollen in one wave. And as a wave breaks, she broke, as she sat down, spreading and splashing and falling over Oliver Bacon, the great jeweler (…)

They both felt uncomfortable, as if they did not know whether to go on or go back.

Love and religion! thought Clarissa, going back into the drawing-room, tingling all over. How detestable, how detestable they are!

Tenéis alguna noción de cuántos libros se escriben al año sobre las mujeres?

Yes, but I still resent the usual order. I will not let myself be made yet to accept the sequence of things. I will walk; I will not change the rhythm of my mind by stopping, by looking; I will walk.

But the room was empty. The fire was still blazing; the chairs, drawn out in a circle, still seemed to hold the skeleton of the party in their empty arms.

Il gusto per i libri era nato presto in lui. Fanciullo, un paggio lo trovava talvolta a mezzanotte ancora intento a leggere. Gli toglievano il candelabro, ed egli allevava delle lucciole per sostituirlo. Gli toglievano le lucciole, ed egli per poco non metteva a fuoco la casa con una esca. Per dirla in nuce, lasciando al novelliere la cura di spianar le infinite pieghe della seta delle nostre anime, Orlando era un aristocratico malato d'amore per la letteratura.

No se sabe lo que ocurrirá cuando el ser mujer ya no sea una ocupación protegida, pensé abriendo la puerta. Pero ¿qué tiene todo esto que ver con el tema de mi conferencia, las mujeres y la novela?, me pregunté entrando en casa.

She looked at Peter Walsh; her look, passing through all that time and that emotion, reached him doubtfully; settled on him tearfully; and rose and fluttered away, as a bird touches a branch and rises and flutters away.

Naturally, Miss Barrett was better; of course she could walk. Flush himself felt that it was impossible to lie still. Old longings revived; a new restlessness possessed him. Even his sleep was full of dreams. He dreamt as he had not dreamt since the old days at Three Mile Cross—of hares starting from the long grass;

Thus Arabel at once "began to comfort me by showing how certain it was that I should recover him for ten pounds at most." Ten pounds, it was reckoned, was about the price that Mr. Taylor would ask for a cocker spaniel. Mr. Taylor was the head of the gang. As soon as a lady in Wimpole Street lost her dog she went to Mr. Taylor; he named his price, and it was paid; or if not, a brown paper parcel was delivered in Wimpole Street a few days later containing the head and paws of the dog.

A great brush swept smooth across his mind, sweeping across it moving branches, children's voices, the shuffle of feet, and people passing, and humming traffic, rising and falling traffic. Down, down he sank into the plumes and feathers of sleep, sank, and was muffled over.

Dünyan?n öylesine çabuk yitip gidecek güzelliÄŸinin iki ucu vard?r, biri kahkaha diÄŸeri kederdir ve kalbi paramparça ederler.

Luego (lo había sentido aquella misma mañana) estaba el terror; la abrumadora incapacidad, los padres poniendo la vida en nuestras manos, para ser vivida hasta el final, para recorrerla serenamente; había en lo más hondo de Clarissa un miedo terrible.

Old age must have endless avenues, stretching away and away down its darkness, she supposed, and now one door opened and then another.

Siempre le había parecido muy peligroso, terriblemente peligroso, vivir, aunque fuera solo un día.

The red setter who had been whining all night beside Flush on the floor was hauled off by a ruffian in a moleskin vest—to what fate? Was it better to be killed or to stay here? Which was worse—this life or that death?

With dispassionate despair, with entire disillusionment, I surveyed the dust dance; my life, my friends' lives, and those fabulous presences, men with brooms, women writing, the willow tree by the river — clouds and phantoms made of dust too, of dust that changed, as clouds lose and gain and take gold or red and lose their summits and billow this way and that, mutable, vain.

but how speak to a man who does not see you? who sees ogres, satyrs, perhaps the depths of the sea instead?

It is true that each visit began, continued, or concluded with a declaration of love, but in between there was much room for silence.

It had seemed so safe, thinking of her. Ghost, air, nothingness, a thing you could play with easily and safely at any time of day or night, she had been that...Suddenly, the empty drawing-room steps, the frill of the chair inside, the puppy tumbling on the terrace, the whole wave and whisper of the garden became like curves and arabesques flourishing round a centre of complete nothingness.