Mrs. Dalloway: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition

by Virginia Woolf

Every time she gave a party she had this feeling of being something not herself, and that every one was unreal in one way; much more real in another. It was, she thought, partly their clothes, partly being taken out of their ordinary ways, partly the background, it was possible to say things you couldn’t say anyhow else, things that needed an effort; possible to go much deeper.

For the young people could not talk. And why should they? Shout, embrace, swing, be up at dawn; carry sugar to ponies; kiss and caress the snouts of adorable chows; and then all tingling and streaming, plunge and swim.

For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying—what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt.