Death is woven in with the violets,” said Louis. “Death and again death.”) Virginia Woolf More Quotes by Virginia Woolf More Quotes From Virginia Woolf I have made up thousands of stories; I have filled innumerable notebooks with phrases to be used when I have found the true story, the one story to which all these phrases refer. But I have never yet found the story. And I begin to ask, Are there stories? Virginia Woolf notebook phrases stories Like" and "like" and "like"--but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing? Virginia Woolf semblance lying Do not move, do not go. Sink within this moment. Hold it for ever. Virginia Woolf moments moving Arrange whatever pieces come your way. Virginia Woolf laughter inspiration education [Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples. Virginia Woolf pimples insult funny Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. Virginia Woolf mrs-dalloway skeletons habit I like the unreality of your mind; the whole thing is very splendid and voluptuous and absurd. Virginia Woolf chaos absurd mind I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older. Virginia Woolf autumn spring thinking Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action. Virginia Woolf essentials mirrors use She had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness, and it silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and the blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough! Virginia Woolf eye blue beach The compensation of growing old ... was simply this; that the passion remains as strong as ever, but one has gained -- at last! -- the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence -- the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light. Virginia Woolf passion light strong For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing. Virginia Woolf reading writing fall As for my next book, I won't write it till it has grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall. Virginia Woolf writing book fall Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible. Virginia Woolf attachment writing life more and more I come to loathe any dominion of one over another; any leadership, any imposition of the will. Virginia Woolf imposition dominion power On or about December 1910, human character changed. Virginia Woolf december changed character Every face, every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned--in search of what? It is the same with books. What do we seek through millions of pages? Virginia Woolf squares dark book Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by. Virginia Woolf apparitions surface dark Am I alone in my egotism when I say that never does the pale light of dawn filter through the blinds of 52 Tavistock Square but I open my eyes and exclaim, "Good God! Here I am again!" not always with pleasure, often with pain; sometimes in a spasm. Virginia Woolf pain eye here-i-am In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment in June. Virginia Woolf june eye men