Virginia Wolf Quotes

If I were flying, I would travel to a perfect place. A place with frosted cakes and beautiful flowers and excellent trees to climb and absolutely no doldrums. ~ Kyo Maclear

What are the great poetical names of the last hundred years or so? Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Landor, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Morris, Rossetti, Swinburne - we may stop there. Of these, all but Keats, Browning, Rossetti were University men, and of these three, Keats, who died young, cut off in his prime, was the only one not fairly well to do. It may seem a brutal thing to say, and it is a sad thing to say: but, as a matter of hard fact, the theory that poetical genius bloweth where it listeth, and equally in poor and rich, holds little truth. As a matter of hard fact, nine out of those twelve were University men: which means that somehow or other they procured the means to get the best education England can give. As a matter of hard fact, of the remaining three you know that Browning was well to do, and I challenge you that, if he had not been well to do, he would no more have attained to write Saul or The Ring and the Book than Ruskin would have attained to writing Modern Painters if his father had not dealt prosperously in business. Rossetti had a small private income; and, moreover, he painted. There remains but Keats; whom Atropos slew young, as she slew John Clare in a mad-house, and James Thomson by the laudanum he took to drug disappointment. These are dreadful facts, but let us face them. It is - however dishonouring to us as a nation - certain that, by some fault in our commonwealth, the poor poet has not in these days, nor has had for two hund ~ Virginia Wolf

Women's rights, that antediluvian topic. ~ Virginia Woolf

We were quite naturally unhappy; feeling a definite need, unbearably keen at moments, which was never to be satisfied. But that was recognizable pain, and the sharp pang grew to be almost welcome in the midst of the sultry and opaque life which was not felt, had nothing real in it, and yet swam about us, and choked us and blinded us. All these tears and groans, reproaches and protestations of affection, high talk of duty and work and living for others, were doubtless what we should feel if we felt properly, and yet we had but a dull sense of gloom which could not honestly be referred to the dead; unfortunately it did not quicken our feeling for the living; but hideous as it was, obscured both living and dead; and for long did unpardonable mischief by substituting for the shape of a true and most vivid mother, nothing better than an unlovable phantom. ~ Virginia Woolf

A million candles burnt in him without his being at the trouble of lighting a single one ~ Virginia Woolf

Marriage. The other thing, after all, came so much ~ Virginia Woolf

Unpraised, I find it hard to start writing in the morning; but the dejection lasts only 30 minutes, and once I start I forget all about it. One should aim, seriously, at disregarding ups and downs; a compliment here, a silence there;[ ... ] the central fact remains stable, which is the fact of my own pleasure in the art. ~ Virginia Woolf

But you're the only one, Scarlet. You'll always be the only one. ~ Marissa Meyer

One of the ladies handed her a red velvet hooded cloak. Little Red Riding Hood. This big bad wolf in a leather kilt wanted to eat her all up. ~ Terry Spear

Each morning when you wake up, bow three times before the mirror and say, "The world is a better place because I am here. ~ Virginia Satir

In Georgia, rednecks are just wolves in wolf clothing. In Detroit, you don't know who's a redneck until you go home and meet their parents. ~ Joseph Bruce

Knowing when you should weigh up your options, remain calm and not take everything at face value has certain benefits
Ending the day with with a peaceful soul is one... ~ Virginia Alison

Could she stick her hand in that sink? Did she dare put in the drain plug? Every time she moved toward it, she shrank back, terrified and guilty, ~ Vanessa Wolf

As a great deal of flesh would have been needed to make a fat man of him, his frame being so large, he was not fat; his face was a large framework too, looking, by the smallness of the features and the glow in the hollow of the cheek, more fitted to withstand assaults of the weather than to express sentiments and emotions, or to respond to them in others. ~ Virginia Woolf

Jen leaned around Sally and glared at her two best friends. "What are you two betting on?"
"Good grief. What, does she have eagle ears or something?"
"No you dork. Your whisper is just you talking in normal volume but making your voice raspy. Really, you sound more like a chick who's been smoking for thirty years." Jen shrugged. "I'm just throwing that out there. You can take it and apply it at your leisure."
Fane was chuckling at Jen's words when Jacque elbowed him, causing him to cough.
"You don't get to laugh, wolf-man." Jacque turned back to Jen. "Thank you for that observation, Sherlock. ~ Quinn Loftis

It is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people ... Think of things in themselves. ~ Virginia Woolf

No boys, right? Especially the dude that walks around like that wolf kid from Twilight. ~ Anonymous

The past is important. It is the past that helps make us who we are. ~ Elizabeth Morgan

The phrase comes to him before the emotion; but we must add that he is nevertheless a born writer, a man who detests meals, servants, ease, respectability or anything that gets between him and his art; who has kept his freedom when most of his contemporaries have long ago lost theirs; who is ashamed of nothing but being ashamed; who says whatever he has it in his mind to say, and has taught himself an accent, a cadence, indeed a language, for saying it in which, though they are not English, but Irish, will give him his place among the lesser immortals of our tongue. ~ Virginia Woolf

War is not women's history. ~ Virginia Woolf

Well, what if ... " Scarlet listed her head. "You said the control when your animal instincts will overpower your own thoughts right? But fighting and hunting aren't the only instincts wolves have. Aren't wolves ... monogamous, for starters?" Her cheeks started to burn and she had to look away, scratching her fork into a set of initial. "And isn't the alpha male the one who's responsible for protecting everyone? Not only the pack, but his mate too?" Dropping the fork, she threw her hands into the air. "I'm not saying I think you and I are
after just
I know we just met and that's ... but it's not out of the questions, is it? That your instincts to protect me could be as strong as your instincts to kill? ~ Marissa Meyer

The Wolf is never tamed through violence. But rather with a kind, gentle, and above all, patient hand. The most ferocious of beasts see enemies everywhere. They have to in order to live. All they know is how to be attacked and how to fight. They expect treachery from all. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Plot involves fragmentary reality, and it might involve composite reality. Fragmentary reality is the view of the individual. Composite reality is the community or state view. Fragmentary reality is always set against composite reality. Virginia Woolf did this by creating fragmentary monologues and for a while this was all the rage in literature. She was a genius. In the hands of the merely talented it came off like gibberish. ~ Rita Mae Brown

Sweet Mother in Heaven, please don't let me be dreaming." He raised his hand, stopping Rachel's interruption before she could get it properly started. "Or if this is a dream," he continued, "then don't let me wake up. Amen. ~ Virginia Kantra

Colour my world with sunset peach and betwixt the dying day and blooming night, we shall dance across the impatient stars of twilight... ~ Virginia Alison

Then I think about Photoshopping a picture of Wolf and me together in the yearbook: Best Couple.In your face, mysterious ponytailed wench. ~ Alecia Whitaker

People mistakenly think that art is about nature, or about an artists feelings about nature. It is instead a path of enlightenment and pleasure, one of many paths, where nature and the artists feelings are merely raw material. ~ Wolf Kahn

To wake up on a gloriously bright morning, in a tent pitched beneath spruce trees, and to look out lazily and sleepily for a moment from the open side of the tent, across the dead camp-fire of the night before, to the river, where the light of morning rests and perhaps some early-rising[240] native is gliding in his birch canoe; to go to the river and freshen one's self with the cold water, and yell exultingly to the gulls and hell-divers, in the very joy of living; or to wake at night, when you have rolled in your blankets in the frost-stricken dying grass without a tent, and to look up through the leaves above to the dark sky and the flashing stars, and hear far off the call of a night bird or the howl of a wolf: this is the poetry, the joy of a wild and roving existence, which cannot come too often ~ Josiah Edward Spurr

Two hours on television just doesn't automatically happen. I'm up early, I'm reading newspapers online, talking to my staff, coming up with ideas. ~ Wolf Blitzer

For one day as I leant over a gate that led into a field, the rhythm stopped: the rhymes and the hummings, the nonsense and the poetry. A space was cleared in my mind. I saw through the thick leaves of habit. Leaning over the gate I regretted so much litter, so much unaccomplishment and separation, for one cannot cross London to see a friend, life being so full of engagements; nor take a ship to India and see a naked man spearing a fish in blue water. I said life had been imperfect, an unfinished phrase. It had been impossible for me, taking snuff as I do from any bagman met in a train, to keep coherency - that sense of the generations, of women carrying red pitchers to the Nile, of the nightingale who sings among conquests and migrations. It had been too vast an undertaking, I said, and how can I go on lifting my foot perpetually to climb the stair? I addressed myself as one would speak to a companion with whom one is voyaging to the North Pole. ~ Virginia Woolf

People are saying, 'Big Data is the new oil.' ~ Gary Wolf

For here again, we come to a dilemma. Different though the sexes are, they intermix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male or female likeness, while underneath the sex is the very opposite of what it is above.
For it was this mixture in her of man and woman, one being uppermost and then the other, that often gave her conduct an unexpected turn. The curious of her own sex would argue how, for example, if Orlando was a woman, did she never take more than ten minutes to dress? And were not her clothes chosen rather at random, and sometimes worn rather shabby? And then they would say, still, she has none of the formality of a man, or a man's love of power. ~ Virginia Woolf

The best musicians in the world were raised on the same kind of music I was raised on and that is black, soulful, authoritative, ultra-tight, ferocious, uppity, defiant music that from the Howlin' Wolf, the Muddy Waters, the Lightnin' Hopkins, the Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard. ~ Ted Nugent

This self now as I leant over the gate looking down over fields rolling in waves of colour beneath me made no answer. He threw up no opposition. He attempted no phrase. His fist did not form. I waited. I listened. Nothing came, nothing. I cried then with a sudden conviction of complete desertion. Now there is nothing. No fin breaks the waste of this immeasurable sea. Life has destroyed me. No echo comes when I speak, no varied words. This is more truly death than the death of friends, than the death of youth. ~ Virginia Woolf

Ask yourself: Are you spending your time on the right things? You may have causes, goals, interests. Are they even worth pursuing? I've long held on to a clipping from a newspaper in Roanoke, Virginia. It featured a photo of a pregnant woman who had lodged a protest against a local construction site. She worried that the sound of jackhammers was injuring her unborn child. But get this: In the photo, the woman is holding a cigarette. If she cared about her unborn child, the time she spent railing against jackhammers would have been better spent putting out that cigarette. ~ Randy Pausch

What are the purposes of examinations anyhow? Are they to increase our educational attainment? Or are they instruments used to bring suffering and humiliation and deep hurt to a person who is trying so hard to succeed? ~ Virginia Mae Axline

Liam cleared his throat again and turned to fully face me. "So, it's the summer and you're in Salem, suffering through another boring, hot July, and working part-time at an ice cream parlor. Naturally, you're completely oblivious to the fact that all of the boys from your high school who visit daily are more interested in you than the thirty-one flavors. You're focused on school and all your dozens of clubs, because you want to go to a good college and save the world. And just when you think you're going to die if you have to take another practice SAT, your dad asks if you want to go visit your grandmother in Virginia Beach."
"Yeah?" I leaned my forehead against his chest. "What about you?"
"Me?" Liam said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "I'm in Wilmington, suffering through another boring, hot summer, working one last time in Harry's repair shop before going off to some fancy university - where, I might add, my roommate will be a stuck-up-know-it-all-with-a-heart-of-gold named Charles Carrington Meriwether IV - but he's not part of this story, not yet." His fingers curled around my hip, and I could feel him trembling, even as his voice was steady. "To celebrate, Mom decides to take us up to Virginia Beach for a week. We're only there for a day when I start catching glimpses of this girl with dark hair walking around town, her nose stuck in a book, earbuds in and blasting music. But no matter how hard I try, I never get to talk to her.
"Then, as our fr ~ Alexandra Bracken

Something radically new, the producer tells me. Think Virginia Woolf with dead bodies and car chases. ~ James Sallis