"O why do I ever let anyone..." - Quote by Virginia Woolf
O why do I ever let anyone read what I write! Every time I have to go through a breakfast with a letter of criticism I swear I will write for my own praise or blame in future. It is a misery.
More by Virginia Woolf
“Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.”
“O friendship, I too will press flowers between the pages of Shakespeare's sonnets!”
“How lovely goodness is in those who, stepping lightly, go smiling through the world.”
More on Writing
“I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.”
“I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.”
“We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not posses.”
More on Criticism
“There is only good art and mediocre art.”
“Just as the philanthropist is the nuisance of the ethical sphere, so the nuisance of the intellectual sphere is the man who is so occupied in trying to educate others, that he has never had any time to educate himself.”
“Look at the Chandra Levy case. It's become a Star Chamber. The major networks, the cable networks, they're being prosecutors. They're judges and jurors and executioners. Well, c'mon, that's ridiculous. But they're doing it.”