To sit and contemplate - to remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy and yet content to remain where and what you are.
Virginia WoolfWe are cut, we are fallen. We are become part of that unfeeling universe that sleeps when we are at our quickest and burns red when we lie asleep.
Virginia WoolfWe are about to part," said Neville. "Here are the boxes; here are the cabs. There is Percival in his billycock hat. He will forget me. He will leave my letters lying about among guns and dogs unaswered. I shall send him poems and he will perhaps reply with a picture post card. But it is for that that I love him. I shall propose a meeting - under a clock, by some Cross; and shall wait and he will not come. It is for that that I love him.
Virginia Woolfletters are venerable; and the telephone valiant, for the journey is a lonely one, and if bound together by notes and telephones we went in company, perhaps - who knows? - we might talk by the way.
Virginia WoolfA good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.
Virginia WoolfWell, Iโve had my fun; Iโve had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging baskets of pale geraniums. And it was smashed to atomsโhis fun, for it was half made up, as he knew very well; invented, this escapade with the girl; made up, as one makes up the better part of life, he thoughtโmaking onself up; making her up; creating an exquisite amusement, and something more. But odd it was, and quite true; all this one could never shareโit smashed to atoms.
Virginia Woolf