Quotes from Virginia Woolf

But what are stories? Toys I twist, bubbles I blow, one ring passing through another. And sometimes I begin to doubt if there are stories.

O verde na natureza é uma coisa, o verde na literatura é outra. A natureza e as letras parecem ter uma antipatia visceral; junte as duas, e se estraçalham mutuamente.

Leaning over this parapet I see far out a waste of water. A fin turns. This bare visual impression is unattached to any line of reason, it springs up as one might see the fin of a porpoise on the horizon. Visual impressions often communicate thus briefly statements that we shall in time come to uncover and coax into words.

This was now revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of words. The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair.

Sapeva per esperienza che le estasi religiose induriscono la gente, ottundono i sentimenti.

the grass still a soft deep green, the house starred in its greenery with purple passion flowers, and rooks dropping cool cries from the high blue. But something moved, flashed, turned a silver wing in the air.

Dünyay? avucunun içine al?yor. Bir say? yazmaya baÅŸl?yorum, dünya içinde ilmek oluyor; ama ben d???nday?m ÅŸimdi birleÅŸtirdiÄŸim, mühürlediÄŸim, bütünlediÄŸim ilmeÄŸin. Dünya bir bütün, ben d???nday?m.

He loved, beneath all this summer transiency, to feel the earth's spine beneath him; for such he took the hard root of the oak tree to be.

Yet even when they were freed from the practical impediments imposed upon their sex, they could not write because they had no tradition to follow. No sentence had been shaped, by long labor, to express the experience of women.

The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.

the Lord who had come to renew society, who lay like a coverlet, a snow blanket smitten only by the sun, for ever unwasted, suffering for ever, the scapegoat, the eternal sufferer...

There was a bill that he would pay with a real two shilling piece, and it was real, all real, he assured himself, fingering the coin in his pocket, real to everyone except to him and to her; even to him it began to seem real; and then–but it was too exciting to stand and think any longer, and he pulled the parasol out of the earth with a jerk and was impatient to find the place where one had tea with other people, like other people.

Lei sapeva che cosa le mancava. Non era la bellezza, non era l'intelligenza. Era qualcosa dentro, che si irradia dal centro; un calore che spacca le superfici e increspa gli orli del freddo contatto tra un uomo e una donna, o tra due donne. Oscuramente lei lo sentiva.

Vendrá si trabajamos por ella, y que vale la pena trabajar hasta en la oscuridad y en la pobreza.

children never forget. For this reason, it was so important what one said, and what one did, and it was a relief when they went bed. For now she need not think about anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of--to think; well, not even to think. To be silent; to be alone.

So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places.

If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what it is today?

Seduti per terra parlarono - lui e Clarissa. Senza nessuno sforzo entravano e uscivano l'uno dalla mente dell'altra.

He was attaching meanings to words of a symbolical kind. A serious symptom, to be noted on the card.

Kifejezéseket és újra csak kifejezéseket kell gyártanom, hogy valami szilárd dolgot iktassak a szobalányok tekintete, az órák tekintete, az arcok tekintete és magam közé, különben sírni fogok.

Prima del risveglio, le voci degli uccelli e il rumore delle ruote si intonano e producono una strana armonia, che cresce e cresce, e chi dorme si sente spinto verso le rive della vita, così si sentì lui, tirato verso la vita, col sole che diventava sempre più caldo, le grida sempre più forti; qualcosa di tremendo stava per accadere.

It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion, and rushed to the farthest verge and there quivered and felt the world come closer, swollen with some astonishing significance, some pressure of rapture, which split its thin skin and gushed and poured with an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores.

one cannot hope to tell the truth. One can only show how one came to hold whatever opinion one does hold. One can only give one's audience the chance of drawing their own conclusions as they observe the limitations, the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies of the speaker.

The amusing thing about coming back to England [...] was the way it made [...] things stand out as if one had never seen them before [...]. Never had he seen London look so enchanting [...].