Virginia Woolf

There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking.

Life's what you see in people's eyes; life's what they learn, and, having learnt it, never, though they seek to hide it, cease to be aware of — what?

The youth had a step, a bearing, a gentlemanly impulse, which showed him acutely conscious of his dignity and his position in London society.

Only a wound in the spirit, compounded of shame and misery, can truly unman. The only sword that will serve is the sword of honor.

But what is the past? Could it be remembered? Could it be indicated in any way? Could it be embodied in a sheaf of papers hanging from a brass ring?

The River of Lethe was a stream in which all past memories were washed away; all grudges and hatreds were drowned.

For we are all, in the last resort, what we are remembered to be.

The journey, she thought as she lay in bed, is the opposite of loneliness. She looked up at his picture which hung on a hook in the ceiling. He seemed to say 'Death' as others say 'Mist' or 'Memory.'

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker.

People in love always do the wrong thing.

To grow old is to lose authority.

Desire plays on the whole orchestra. To say that we mutually desire, Orlando and I, would scarcely express it.