The Waves

by Virginia Woolf

And since beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful, and he is static, his life stagnates in a china sea.

‘It is curious how, at every crisis, some phrase which does not fit insists upon coming to the rescue—the

‘Here am I shedding one of my life-skins, and all they will say is, “Bernard is spending ten days in Rome.”

I am sick of the body. I am sick of my own craft, industry and cunning, of the unscrupulous ways of the mother who protects, who collects under her jealous eyes at one long table her own children, always her own.

We are not called upon to torture our fellows with thumbscrews and irons; we are not called upon to mount pulpits and lecture them on pale Sunday afternoons.

is strange that we, who are capable of so much suffering, should inflict so much suffering. Strange that the face of a person, whom I scarcely know save that I think we met once on the gangway of a ship bound for Africa—a mere adumbration of eyes, cheeks, nostrils—should have power to inflict this insult.