"Rhoda comes now, having slipped in while..." - Quote by Virginia Woolf
Rhoda comes now, having slipped in while we were not looking. She must have made a tortuous course, taking cover now behind a waiter, now behind some ornamental pillar, so as to put off as long as possible the shock of recognition, so as to be secure for one more moment to rock her petals in her basin. We wake her. We torture her. She dreads us, she despises us, yet she comes cringing to our sides because for al our cruelty there is always some name, some face which sheds a radiance, which lights up her pavements and makes it possible for her to replenish her dreams.
More by Virginia Woolf
“To read a novel is a difficult and complex art. You must be capable not only of great fineness of perception, but of great boldness of imagination.”
“If people are highly successful in their profession they lose their senses. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. They lose their sense of proportion.”
“Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.”
More on Human Nature
“It's human nature to not say everything that's on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We're afraid of being embarrassed.”
“To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one's breast and groan over oneself.”
“People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another.”
More on Relationships
“I love you,too, Garrett. But sometimes love isn't enough.”
“How had I become middle-aged while the ravages of time ignored her? I didn't know and didn't care, and before I could stop them, the words were already out. "You're beautiful," I murmured.”
“I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn't be a staring contest.”