Virginia Woolf

Nigel Nicolson

The Letters of Virginia Woolf

sariya

"I know that with the first chink of light in the hall & chatter of voices i should become intoxicated, & determine that life held nothing comparable to a party. I should see beautiful people, & get a sensation of being on the highest crest of the biggest wave—right in the center and swim of things. On the third & final hand, the evenings reading by the fire here—reading Michelet and The Idiot, & smoking & talking to L. in what stands for slippers and dressing gown—are heavenly too."

"At this moment, I feel as if the human race had no character at all—sought for nothing, believed in nothing, & fought only from a dreary sense of duty."

"The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be, I think."

"All I can do is to unsay all I have said; & to say what I really mean. It's a bad habit writing novels—it falsifies life, I think."

"...so divine it is, coming in from a walk to have tea by the fire & then read & read—say Othello—say anything. It doesn't seem to matter what. But one's faculties are so oddly clarified that the page detaches itself in it's true meaning & lies as if illumined, before one's eyes; seen whole & truly not in jerks & spasms..."

"Anyhow, nothing is more fascinating than a live person; always changing, resisting, and yielding against one's forecast..."

The Letters of Virginia Woolf quotes

Join the club