Thursday, December 08, 2011

Stamp of a Writer: Virginia Woolf

"Language is wine upon the lips."

"Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."

"Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money."

"Books are the mirrors of the soul."


"I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual."

"Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others."

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

"Do we write better? Do we read better? We read and wrote 400 years ago when we were un-lectured, un-criticized, un-taught."

"Words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind. And how do they live in the mind? Variously and strangely, much as human beings live, ranging hither and dither falling in love, meeting together. It's true they are much less bound by ceremony, convention, than we are. Royal words meet with common words. English words marry French words, German words, Indian words..."

"Fiction must stick to facts, and the truer the facts the better the fiction—so we are told."

6 comments:

  1. An excellent collection of quotes from Virginia Woolf-I have this one as my quote of the day on my blog

    "A fine gentleman like that, they said, had no need of books. Let him leave books, they said, to the palsied or the dying."-from Orlando by Virginia Woolf

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  2. Mel U, thanks. Virginia Woolf was ahead of her times in many ways, as were women writers of her era.

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  3. great quotes. writing is like sex is my favorite. I doubt I'll ever have a stamp dedicated to me. Perhaps that's a good thing.

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  4. You never know, Charles, you never know!

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  5. Amazing quotes from an amazing writer. I especially like the one about words. So lyrical.

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  6. True, Che, a reminder that authors like Virginia Woolf need to be read.

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