"To the Lighthouse" Quotes

What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years.

So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.

It was an extraordinary night—so still that the waves lapping on the shore sounded like crumpling silk.

But nothing is so strange when one is in love (and what was this except being in love?) as the complete indifference of other people.

In some ways it was the most disappointing of seasons. There was nothing to come. No one to talk to.

She waited a moment. Then she said, For Heavens sake, James, let us go. And she began to walk slowly off in the direction of the house.

Mrs. Ramsay, who had been sitting with the children, got up and moved about, laughing to her husband, who stared at her, at the window.

What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.

As they neared the shore it became plain that the bay was made of water, water that was green and then lovely shades of blue, and even white where it broke and churned, which it did, at a distance, or against the rocks.

It was her notion that the sky was falling.