Quotes by Virginia Woolf

“ I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in. ”

“ Orlando naturally loved solitary places, vast views, and to feel himself for ever and ever and ever alone. ”

“ The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. ”

“ All extremes of feeling are allied with madness. ”

“ A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen. ”

“ Love, the poet said, is woman's whole existence. ”

“ Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. ”

“ How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself. ”

“ I am rooted, but I flow. ”

“ Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy. ”