A Society Quotes

“You must remember that fiction is the mirror of life.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“You can judge of our simplicity when I tell you that before parting that night we agreed that the objects of life were to produce good people and good books. Our questions were directed to finding out how far these objects were attained by men. We vowed solemnly that we would not bear a single child until we were satisfied.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in—and that is herself.”
― virginia woolf, A Society

“Oh, Cassandra, for Heaven's sake let us devise a method by which men may bear children! It is our only chance. For unless we provide them with some innocent occupation we shall get neither good people nor good books; we shall perish beneath the fruits of their unbridled activity; and not a human being will survive to know that there once was Shakespeare!”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“What could be more charming than a boy before he has begun to cultivate his intellect? He is beautiful to look at; he gives himself no airs; he understands the meaning of art and literature instinctively; he goes about enjoying his life and making other people enjoy theirs. Then they teach him to cultivate his intellect. He becomes a barrister, a civil servant, a general, an author, a professor. Every day he goes to an office. Every year he produces a book. He maintains a whole family by the products of his brain -- poor devil! Soon he cannot come into a room without making us all feel uncomfortable; he condescends every woman he meets, and dares not tell the truth even to his own wife; instead of rejoicing our eyes we have to shut them if we are to take him in our arms. True, they console themselves with stars of all shapes, ribbons of all shades, and income of all sizes -- but what is to console us?”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“The truth has nothing to do with literature.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“I move. . . that no one be allowed to talk of chastity or unchastity save those who are in love.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“A scholar is a very different sort of man. A scholar is overflowing with humor and invention -- perhaps addicted to wine, but what of that? -- a delightful companion, generous, subtle, imaginative -- as stands to reason. For he spends his life in company with the finest human beings that have ever existed.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“We were very young. You can judge our simplicity when I tell you that before parting that night we agreed that the objects of life were to produce good people and good books.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society

“A terrible thing had happened. She could read no more. Books were not what she had thought them. "Books," she cried, rising to her feet and speaking with an intensity of desolation which I shall never forget, "are for the most part unutterably bad.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Society