No, I'm not clever. I've always cared more for people than for ideas. Virginia Woolf More Quotes by Virginia Woolf More Quotes From Virginia Woolf It is as if Emily Brontë could tear up all that we know human beings by, and fill these unrecognizable transparencies with such a gust of life that they transcend reality. Virginia Woolf transparencytearsreality Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others. Virginia Woolf others-opinionswritingmen Criticism? An artist wants praise. Praise. Virginia Woolf criticismartistwant The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity. Virginia Woolf completenesstruth-iswomen I have sought happiness through many ages and not found it. Virginia Woolf agefound How can I express the darkness? Virginia Woolf chaosdarkness With twice his wits, she had to see things through his eyes -- one of the tragedies of married life. Virginia Woolf marriedeyetragedy Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends. Virginia Woolf real-friendsbest-friendfriendship When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing. Virginia Woolf existencedarknesswriting I mean it's the writing, not the being read, that excites me. Virginia Woolf writingjoy We must reconcile ourselves to a season of failures and fragments. Virginia Woolf fragmentsreconcileseasons Sometimes I think heaven must be one continuous unexhausted reading. Virginia Woolf readingheaventhinking To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is...at last, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Virginia Woolf lastspeacelooks For beyond the difficulty of communicating oneself, there is the supreme difficulty of being oneself. Virginia Woolf communicatedifficultyoneself Consolation for those moments when you can't tell whether you're the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world. Virginia Woolf foolgeniusworld Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Virginia Woolf givingbookpeople A whole lifetime was too short to bring out, the full flavour; to extract every ounce of pleasure, every shade of meaning. Virginia Woolf shadetoo-shortlife And when we are writing the life of a woman, we may, it is agreed, waive our demand for action, and substitute love instead. Love, the poet has said, is a woman's whole existence. Virginia Woolf demandwritingmay All great writers have, of course, an atmosphere in which they seem most at their ease and at their best; a mood of the general mind which they interpret and indeed almost discover, so that we come to read them rather for that than for any story or character or scene of seperate excellence. Virginia Woolf atmospheremindcharacter literature is the record of our discontent. Virginia Woolf discontentrecordsliterature
