Stefania c > Stefania c's Quotes

“As long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“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.”
― Virginia Woolf

“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.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“Love, the poet said, is woman's whole existence.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando

“What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“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.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando

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

“The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928

“Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge of the world into nothingness. I have to bang my head against some hard door to call myself back to the body.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

“It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“Mrs Dalloway is always giving parties to cover the silence”
― Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

“Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“I want to write a novel about Silence," he said; “the things people don’t say.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out

“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“Cosa li spinge a questa vita, cosa li spinge a combattere, dimmi? [...] E' l'offesa della loro vita, il buio della loro strada, il suicidio della loro casa, le parole oscene imparate fin da bambini, la fatica di dover essere cativi. E basta un nulla, un passo falso, un impennamento dell'anima e ci si ritrova dall'altra parte, come Pelle, dalla brigata nera, a sparare con lo stesso furore, con lo stesso odio, contro gli uni o contro gli altri, fa lo stesso.”
― Italo Calvino, The Path to the Spiders' Nests

“Questo è il significato della lotta, il significato vero, totale, al di là dei vari significati ufficiali. Una spinta di riscatto umano, elementare, anonimo, da tutte le nostre umiliazioni: per l'operaio dal suo sfruttamento, per il contadino dalla sua ignoranza, per il piccolo borghese dalle sue inibizioni, per il paria dalla sua corruzione. Io credo che il nostro lavoro politico sia questo, utilizzare anche la nostra miseria umana, utilizzarla contro se stessa, per la nostra redenzione, così come i fascisti utilizzano la miseria per perpetuare la miseria, e l'uomo contro l'uomo.”
― Italo Calvino, The Path to the Spiders' Nests

“Tutti abbiamo una ferita segreta per riscattare la quale combattiamo.”
― Italo Calvino, The Path to the Spiders' Nests

“Questo non è un esercito, vedi, da dir loro: questo è il dovere. Non puoi parlare di dovere qui, non puoi parlare di ideali: patria, libertà, comunismo. Non ne vogliono sentir parlare di ideali, gli ideali son buoni tutti ad averli, anche dall'altra parte ne hanno di ideali. Non hanno bisogno di ideali, di miti, di evviva da gridare. Qui si combatte e si muore così, senza gridare evviva. [...] Perché combattono, allora? Non hanno nessuna patria, né vera n é inventata. Eppure tu sai che c'è coraggio, che c'è furore anche in loro. È l'offesa della loro vita, il buio della loro strada, il sudicio della loro casa, le parole oscene imparate fin da bambini, la fatica di dover essere cattivi. E basta un nulla, un passo falso, un impennamento dell'anima e ci si trova dall'altra parte.”
― Italo Calvino, The Path to the Spiders' Nests