A Haunted House And Other Short Stories Quotes

“I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“She was a fly, but the others were dragonflies, butterflies, beautiful insects, dancing, fluttering, skimming, while she alone dragged herself up out of the saucer.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“The root of things, what they were all afraid of saying, was that happiness is dirt cheap. You can have it for nothing. Beauty.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long years—” he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure—” Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes. “Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“People should not leave looking-glasses hanging in their rooms any more then they should leave open cheque books or letters confessing some hideous crime.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“He was afraid he did not understand beauty apart form human beings.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“The dawn, even when it is cold and melancholy, never fails to shoot through my limbs as with arrows of sparkling piercing ice. I pull aside the thick curtains, and search for the first glow in the sky which shows that life is breaking through. And with my cheek leant upon the window pane I like to fancy that I am pressing as closely as can be upon the massy wall of time, which is for ever lifting and pulling and letting fresh spaces of life in upon us. May it be mine to taste the moment before it has spread itself over the rest of the world!”
― Virginia Woolf, The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

“Long years—" he sighs. "Again you found me." "Here," she murmurs.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“Here we slept," she says.
And he adds, "Kisses without number."
"Waking in the morning -"
"Silver between the trees -"
"Upstairs -"
"In the garden -"
"When summer came -"
"In winter snowtime -"
The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“Still, there's no harm in putting a full stop to one's disagreeable thoughts by looking at a mark on the wall... Here is something definite, something real. thus, waking from a midnight dream of horror, one hastily turns on the light and lies quiescent, worshipping the chest of drawers, worshipping solidity, worshipping reality, worshipping the impersonal world which is proof of some existence other than ours.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“But what answer? Well that the soul—for she was conscious of a movement in her of some creature beating its way about her and trying to escape which momentarily she called the soul—is by nature unmated, a widow bird; a bird perched aloof on that tree.
But then Bertram, putting his arm through hers in his familiar way, for he had known her all her life, remarked that they were not doing their duty and must go in.
At that moment, in some back street or public house, the usual terrible sexless, inarticulate voice rang out; a shriek, a cry. And the widow bird, startled, flew away, describing wider and wider circles until it became (what she called her soul) remote as a crow which has been startled up into the air by a stone thrown at it.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“Here is something definite, something real. Thus, waking from a midnight dream of horror, one hastily turns on the light and lies quiescent, worshipping the chest of drawers, worshipping solidity, worshipping reality, worshipping the impersonal world which is a proof of some existence other than ours. That is what one wants to be sure of…”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“Her mind then was filled with tenderness and regret… To cut an overgrown branch saddened her because it had once lived, and life was dear to her. Yes, and at the same time the fall of the branch would suggest to her how she must die herself and all the futility and evanescence of things. And then again quickly catching this thought up, with her instant good sense, she thought life had treated her well; even if fall she must, it was to lie on the earth and moulder sweetly into the roots of violets.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories

“…the lump of glass had its place upon the mantelpiece, where it stood heavy upon a little pile of bills and letters and served not only as an excellent paper-weight, but also as a natural stopping place for the young man's eyes when they wandered from his book. Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it. So John found himself attracted to the windows of curiosity shops when he was out walking, merely because he saw something which reminded him of the lump of glass. Anything, so long as it was an object of some kind, more or less round, perhaps with a dying flame deep sunk in its mass, anything—china, glass, amber, rock, marble—even the smooth oval egg of a prehistoric bird would do. He took, also, to keeping his eyes upon the ground, especially in the neighbourhood of waste land where the household refuse is thrown away. Such objects often occurred there—thrown away, of no use to anybody, shapeless, discarded. In a few months he had collected four or five specimens that took their place upon the mantelpiece. They were useful, too, for a man who is standing for Parliament upon the brink of a brilliant career has any number of papers to keep in order—addresses to constituents, declarations of policy, appeals for subscriptions, invitations to dinner, and so on.

__ from 'The Solid Object”
― Virginia Woolf, Collected Short Stories

“Why," she asked "if men write such rubbish as this, should our mothers have wasted their youth in bringing them into the world?"

(from A Society)”
― Virginia Woolf, The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

“It's an easy thing to confess one's faults. But what dusk is deep enough to hide one's virtues?”
― Virginia Woolf, The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

“... for there was neither pride nor regret in his tone; indeed it kept its level note, as of one who tells a tale so well known that the words have been rubbed smooth of meaning.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

“Los ojos de los demás, nuestras prisiones; sus pensamientos, nuestras jaulas.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House

“Fazendo a irmã mais nova sua confidente, viera para Londres, deixando à família uma dessas cartas ridículas que os grandes homens escrevem e que são publicadas um dia, quando já se tornaram célebres e todos desejam saber a história das suas lutas e das suas dores.”
― Virginia Woolf, Contos Completos

“Death was the glass; death was between us; coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house, sealing all the windows; The rooms were darkened. He left it, left her, went North, went East. ‘Safe safe safe,’ the pulse of the house beat gladly, ‘The treasure yours.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House And Other Short Stories