A Writer's Diary Quotes

“...to use the little kick of energy which opposition supplies to be more vigorously oneself.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Why is life so tragic; so like a little strip of pavement over an abyss.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“I have felt that odd whirr of wings in the head.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“First she starved herself of love, which meant also life; then of poetry in deference to what she thought her religion demanded.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Oh and I thought, as i was dressing, how interesting it would be to describe the approach of age, and the gradual coming of death. As people describe love. To note every symptom of failure: but why failure? To treat age as an experience that is different from the others; and to detect every one of the gradual stages towards death which is a tremendous experience, an not as unconscious, at least in its approaches, as death is.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Unhappiness is everywhere; just beyond the door; or stupidity, which is worse”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Now what have I to read? Some Homer: one Greek play: some Plato: Zimmern: Sheppard, as textbook: Bentley’s Life: if done thoroughly, this will be enough. But which Greek play? and how much Homer, and what Plato? Then there’s the Anthology. All to end upon the Odyssey because of the Elizabethans. And I must read a little Ibsen to compare with Euripides—Racine with Sophocles—perhaps Marlowe with Aeschylus. Sounds very learned; but really might amuse me; and if it doesn’t, no need to go on.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“I am suspended between life and death in an unfamiliar way”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Övgüler yerindeydi de, yerinde olmayan sinirlerimdi.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“so whatever happens, though the surface may be agitated, the centre is secure.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“What a terrific capacity I possess for feeling with intensity—now, since we came back, I'm screwed up into a ball; can't get into step; can't make things dance; feel awfully detached; see youth; feel old; no, that's not quite it: wonder how a year or so perhaps is to be endured. Think, yet people do live; can't imagine what goes on behind faces. All is surface hard; myself only an organ that takes blows, one after another; the horror of the hard raddled faces in the flower show yesterday: the inane pointlessness of all this existence: hatred of my own brainlessness and indecision; the old treadmill feeling, of going on and on and on, for no reason”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Now I will watch and see how I resurrect.”
― Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Diary: Events Recorded from 1918-1941

“Seldom have I been more completely miserable than I was about 6.30 last night, reading over the last part of The Years. Such feeble twaddle—such twilight gossip it seemed; such a show up of my own decrepitude, and at such huge length. I could only plump it down on the table and rush upstairs with burning cheeks to L. He said: ‘This always happens.’ But I felt, No, it has never been so bad as this. I make this note should I be in the same state after another book. Now this morning, dipping in, it seems to me, on the contrary, a full, bustling live book. I looked at the early pages. I think there’s something to it.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“How resilient I am; and how fatalistic now; and how little I mind and how much; and how good my novel is; and how tired I am this morning; and how I like praise; and how full of ideas I am; and Tom and Stephen came to tea, and Ray and William dine; and I forgot to describe my interesting talk with Nessa about my criticizing her children; and I left out—I forget what.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“… and time shall be utterly obliterated: future shall somehow blossom out of the past. One incident - say the fall of a flower - might contain it. My theory being that the actual event practically does not exist - nor time either.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Heaven knows what virtue it has, this ecstatic book.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition

“El aspecto exterior de las cosas me impresiona profundamente. Incluso ahora no puedo evitar fijarme en las cornejas, volando contra el viento, que sopla fuerte, y todavía me pregunto instintivamente, ¿cuál es la frase adecuada para expresar esto?, y me esfuerzo en dar más y más vividez a la fuerza de la corriente de aire, y el temblor del ala de la corneja deslizándose, como si el aire fuera todo él riscos, ondulaciones y asperezas. Se alzan y descienden, suben y bajan, como si el ejercicio les diera fuerza y flexibilidad, igual que si fueran nadadores en aguas turbulentas. Pero cuan poco de aquello que tan vívidamente está en mis ojos puedo expresar con la pluma; y no sólo en mis ojos; también en mis fibras nerviosas, o en la membrana en abanico de mi especie.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“El tiempo vuela, oh sí; el verano pronto estará aquí; y todavía soy capaz de pasmarme ante ello. El mundo volverá a dar media vuelta, y pondrá su verde y su azul muy cerca de mis ojos.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Creo que mi único remedio consiste en tener mil intereses diferentes.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“I want to write nothing in this book that I don't enjoy writing. Yet writing is always difficult.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“But though L. says he has petrol in the garage for suicide should Hitler win, we go on.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“One must correct A Room ot One’s Own very carefully before printing. And so I pitched into my great lake of melancholy. Lord how deep it is! What a born melancholic I am! The only way I keep afloat is by working.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace any thing, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary

“Wednesday, March 27th I see I am becoming a regular diariser. The reason is that I cannot make the transition from Pargiters to Dante without some bridge. And this cools my mind. I am rather worried about the raid chapter: afraid if I compress and worry that I shall spoil. Never mind. Forge ahead and see what comes next. Yesterday we went to the Tower, which is an impressive murderous bloody grey raven haunted military barrack prison dungeon place; like the prison of English splendour; the reformatory at the back of history; where we shot and tortured and imprisoned. Prisoners scratched their names, very beautifully, on the walls. And the crown”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary: The Virginia Woolf Library Authorized Edition

“I have made a very quick and flourishing attack on ‘To the Lighthouse,’ all the same - 22 pages straight off in less than a fortnight. I am still crawling and easily enfeebled, but if I could once get up steam again, I believe I could spin it off with infinite relish. Think what a labour the first pages of ‘Dalloway’ were! Each word distilled by a relentless clutch on my brain.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer's Diary