1,646 Quotes by Virginia Woolf

  • Author Virginia Woolf
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    I pass from hot to cold in an instant, without any reason; I am puzzled by parts of my character. And I haven’t said anything very much, or given you any notion of the terrific high waves, and the infernal deep gulfs, on which I mount and toss;

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  • Author Virginia Woolf
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    He called her a melon, a pineapple, an olive tree, an emerald, and a fox in the snow all in the space of three seconds; he did not know whether he had heard her, tasted her, seen her, or all three together.

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  • Author Virginia Woolf
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    Ah, but her romance wasn’t THAT romance. It was a desire, an echo, a sound; she could drape it in color, see it in form, hear it in music, but not in words; no, never in words.

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  • Author Virginia Woolf
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    In fact, though their acquaintance had been so short, they had guessed, as always happens between lovers, everything of any importance about each other in two seconds at the utmost, and it now remained only to fill in such unimportant details as what they were called; where they lived; and whether they were beggars or people of substance.

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  • Author Virginia Woolf
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    Is it not possible — I often wonder — that things we have felt with great intensity have an experience independent of our minds; are in fact still in existence? And if so, will it not be possible,in time, that some device will be invented by which we can tap them? …Instead of remembering here a scene and there a sound, I shall fit a plug into the wall; and listen in to the past

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  • Author Virginia Woolf
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    Is it not possible — I often wonder — that thingswe have felt with great intensity have anexperience independent of our minds; are in factstill in existence? And if so, will it not be possible,in time, that some device will be invented by whichwe can tap them? … Instead of remembering herea scene and there a sound, I shall fit a plug into thewall; and listen in to the past

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  • Author Virginia Woolf
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    Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.

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