But he could not taste, he could not feel. In the teashop among the tables and the chattering waiters the appalling fear came over him- he could not feel. He could reason; he could read, Dante for example, quite easily…he could add up his bill; his brain was perfect; it must be the fault of the world then- that he could not feel.

Virginia Woolf

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

Virginia Woolf

meaningful peace life

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

Virginia Woolf

sparkle inspirational needs

A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life

Virginia Woolf

feminist telling-the-truth

A light here required a shadow there.

Virginia Woolf

shadow light

Love had a thousand shapes.

Virginia Woolf

shapes thousand love

A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.

Virginia Woolf

self goes-on

I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.

Virginia Woolf

inarticulate daily-life desire

Intimacy is a difficult art.

Virginia Woolf

intimacy difficult art

Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.

Virginia Woolf

atmosphere soul earth

Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.

Virginia Woolf

caring essence thinking

Distorted realities have always been my cup of tea.

Virginia Woolf

cups-of-tea tea reality

I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me you're everything that exists; the reality of everything.

Virginia Woolf

stars love romantic

If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their sense. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. Humanity goes. Money making becomes so important that they must work by night as well as by day. Health goes. And so competitive do they become that they will not share their work with others though they have more themselves. What then remains of a human being who has lost sight, sound, and sense of proportion? Only a cripple in a cave.

Virginia Woolf

successful sight night

And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees

Virginia Woolf

tree

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Virginia Woolf

sleep food love

The only advice ... that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.

Virginia Woolf

reading advice giving

No passion is stronger in the breast of a man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high.

Virginia Woolf

passion cutting believe

I am in the mood to dissolve in the sky.

Virginia Woolf

mood sky

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

Virginia Woolf

innovation creativity creative

Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us.

Virginia Woolf

blame horse praise